A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad
by AristideCauquemaire
Summary: Desperate measures are taken to avert a two-family-crisis, and just like that, desperate times are ahead for Scorpius Malfoy. Seriously desperate times. Lucky for him, he has a true friend who is ever ready and willing to lend a hand... [Slash, SM/AP, Next Gen, M for naughtiness. General/Romance with a pinch of crack. Now complete!]
1. Chapter 1

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them)

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><p><em><strong>Author's note:<strong>_  
><em>Hello my babies, honeys and ragtime gals! 'Tis me again. Happy 2015, y'all!<em>

_As you can see, I've written a new story. It's been about time, eh? If you want to read it right away, feel free to skip this intro and go to the "Chapter 1" bit._

_So, here's the thing: Some of you might know that I'm a wordy writer. "Verbose" is practically my middle name. My stories are long ass stories because I enjoy that kind of thing and because I simply do not know how to make them short. (Honestly, how do you do it? There's always more to say!)_

_Just after finishing Calor/Ardor last year, I got an itty bitty idea in my head and got very excited about it. Not only because that idea was delightfully naughty and even a little crack-ish – that was new for me – but because it was seriously itty bitty. This story, for once, promised to be short. Possibly under 40 pages. A quickie! A challenge, a novelty! I was keener than mustard and started writing like a lunatic._

_Well... this short story clocked in at 86 pages or 50k words which I divided into 17 chapters. Sigh. Beware of itty bitty ideas, they grow up _so_ fast. Also, if anyone asks, I'll be over here in my corner, and the likelihood that I'm writing a novel-length story is wayyy high._

_Last but not least: Thanks to _raiyana_ for favving Thoughts, to_ wanderingsinthoughtspace_ for favving Doors (people who seriously like that story are so wondrous to me) and to _ultimatebishoujo21_ for favving Stars. And also, as always, thanks to the wonderful _Nia aka HP-Lette-Fan_ for beta-reading my story and finding the time for me despite all tribulations. Muah!_

_Somewhat __**important notes:**__  
>1) You should know by now that my stories feature <em>_**slash**__, that is, __**relationships**__ between characters of the __**same gender**__, and sometimes things get a little __**explicitly intimate and even romantic**__. If you do not want to read about something like that, ask yourself why you even clicked on the link (come on, it's in the summary _and_ in the header) as you make use of the 'back'-button of your browser. Bye!_

_2) As usual, this story is already completely written, but I will post **one new chapter each afternoon/evening**__ (European Standard Time) so I can reply to reviews written by guests (and, let's face it, so that some people actually see it when it pops up several times on the 'updated'-page). This one will be completely uploaded by Sunday, 25__th__ of January 2015._

_3) I love nothing more than replying to reviews (except maybe getting and reading them) and will reply to each and every one regardless of length or level of friendliness. (Warning: Subtle hint detected!)_

_4) Do we actually still need disclaimers? Everyone should know that all the Potters, Malfoys and Weasleys and the rest are belong to Joanne K Rowling and that we are only borrowing them for gratuitous fun._

_Okay now. Enough with the prelude. Read and enjoy!_

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><p><em><strong>~Chapter 1~<strong>_

"Young Master Scorpius, your father and mother require you in the south wing study."

Scorpius first nodded absently. He was snuggled up on the couch with a blanket and his favourite winter pullover which, strictly speaking, was too warm to wear in the well warm-spelled Malfoy Manor but he didn't particularly care, immersed in the special edition of _Quidditch Today_, a 157 page thick, glossy magazine with facts and figures about all the teams that would compete in the coming world cup that his mother had given him for Christmas a few days ago. Damn it if the Danish team didn't look even more unbeatable on paper than on the pitch...!

He made a 'hmm' sound to acknowledge the house-elf and her message, but then his brain really registered what had been said. He paused and looked up at Milly who was still standing there, the reading matter in his hands all but forgotten.

"Did you just say that _both_ my parents want me in the _south wing study_?" he asked, putting lead-heavy emphases on the key points of his almost fearful inquiry.

"Milly did, Young Master Scorpius," the elf confirmed, noting but unable to categorize her young Master's sudden pallor and the wide eyes. Preemptively, she got worried, wrung her hands and bowed, and then vanished with a _plop_.

"Shit," Scorpius swore, letting the magazine drop to the floor, never minding the dog ears, and swore again, "Shit!" as he stumbled over his own slippers on the way to his wardrobe.

He needed good clothes. A nice, well-fitting cloak and an understated but classy shirt and tie to go with it. Neat as a pin. Dressed to the nines, or at least to the eights.

His father _and_ his mother.

Telling a house-elf to fetch him.

To the south wing study.

His mother didn't believe in ordering her house-elves around to that purpose. She thought it was decadent and impersonal – not family-like – and also she probably enjoyed walking in on him without ever knocking because that's what mums do. For her, it wasn't a chore that should be foisted off on the house-elves, but a privilege.

His father, being an opportunist at heart, instead of going out of his way rather made a habit of postponing whatever issue he had until he inevitably encountered him somewhere downstairs, in the kitchen, the living room or the gardens later on. On the occasion of Scorpius raising his ire – which had only happened twice in 16 years, for good reason – he would simply roar his name and the Manor would do the rest, carrying his voice through all rooms and corridors like a gigantic howler.

A house-elf relaying an attendance request was ominous.

An attendance request issued by _both his parents at once_ was downright sinister.

And then, the south wing study.

Both his parents, his mother in particular, hated that room, he knew. It was wide and high-ceilinged with huge French windows that let in plenty of light, it had a view of the southern meadow and the duck pond, and there was an original Degas on the eastern wall that would have made every gallery curator weep.

But it was also the room in which Armand Malfoy poisoned his first wife, and in which Abraxas Malfoy used to behead his old house-elves, and where Septimus Malfoy smoked his noxious lightroot-tobacco pipe, and, last but certainly not least, where Lucius Malfoy had received Voldemort, and the stench of all of this seemed to have seeped into the oppressively dark ebony floor, the thick wine-red-and-gold-filigree tapestry and the unbearably gaudy chandelier that dangled over the bulky monster of a work desk like a sparkly, spiky sword of Damocles. Also, there was a certain draft in the room that always gave you cold toes which would be especially bad now in the middle of winter.

In all, this room stood for everything the Malfoy family had tried and was still continuously trying to leave behind. The dark past. The flaunting of unlimited wealth coupled with the persistent urge to do so in the least subtle or classy way possible, the officiousness and self-importance and snobbish self-distance and, quite frankly, the copious amounts of wanton cruelty that blackened the name. Therefore, everyone avoided it. Even the house-elves were told not to bother with it too much, so a musty smell hung around the air in there, mingling with the ghost of Septimus' acrid tobacco smoke, and a thin coat of dust that had settled on everything added a powdery, pale sheen to the scenery.

And yet, there they were, waiting for him in that horrible room.

Scorpius looked himself up and down in the mirror, trying to smooth down a stray lock of hair with spit. Whatever was going on, he knew it was bad, and all he could do was try and not look like a disaster to make it even worse.

Taking two deep breaths and quickly deciding against doing something cosmetic against the spots on his forehead, he made his way downstairs.

/

"Scorpius. There you are. Come in, please. Sit down."

His mother gestured woodenly toward the empty chair on the left. She herself was standing next to and behind his dad who was sitting in the most deceivingly uncomfortable office chair in the entire house behind the aforementioned bulky monster of a desk. Scorpius had seen the hunk of polished cocoa-coloured wood at numerous instances but was startled anew every time at how unbelievably ugly it was. So many frills and carvings and bulges. Even Louis XIV wouldn't have wanted it because it was just too gaudy.

But he wasn't very focussed on the desk in this moment. He barely even registered his mother's words, or the thin line of his father's lips, or the short acknowledgement of his efforts to dress properly which showed in both their eyes – relief that he hadn't come in his favourite Power Rangers pyjamas, or even just straight up wearing his boxers with the Pokémon on it.

To his right, in two more chairs, two people were seated. He recognized the woman right away, and the man by inference. Suddenly, being in this awful room made a little sense.

"Undersecretary Granger," he said, and his voice spiralled upward at the end in question and possibly a twinge of fear. "And, uhm, Mr Weasley."

"Scorpius," Mrs Granger, Undersecretary and Public Relations manager of Kingsley Shacklebolt, said, inclining her head ever so slightly and smiling. She was probably going for 'mild smile' but it was too wide and the muscles around her eyes didn't move at all, like in most of the photos in the Prophet when they were taken for some unpleasant reason, like tax raises or fraud allegations.

"It's _Auror_ Weasley, Scorpius," his father corrected him almost casually.

Mr Weasley simply stared daggers at Scorpius and said nothing. A muscle was twitching in his cheek.

"Sit down, darling," his mother said again.

Scorpius found that his knees had just quit their job and gone for a butterbeer. Sitting was not an option. Neither was walking. "Uhm," he mumbled and didn't move an inch toward the empty chair that stood there, innocuous-looking and inviting, an innocent accessory in this interrogation-scene-in-the-making. "Sorry," he said, apologizing preemptively and in general, just in case. "What's... what's going on? Exactly?" Several good-cop-bad-cop-scenes flashed before his eyes.

"There's something we need to talk with you about," his mother helpfully remarked.

"It's not..." A thought came to him and rushed out of his mouth immediately. "Is Rose all right?" He looked at her parents, heart beating quickly. "Nothing has happened to her, has it?"

Mr – _Auror_ – Weasley growled. He _actually_ growled. Scorpius had always thought that people didn't really ever do that, just like they never _gulp_ed or cried beautiful single tears. Except that he caught himself gulping as Mr Weasley's growl grew into a word. "Yet."

"I find it interesting, Scorpius," Mrs Granger piped up, casually and inconspicuously sliding her hand onto her husband's thigh, presumably to calm him down or _hold_ him down before he could jump up and tear his throat out or both, and Scorpius wondered why she insisted on saying his name again and if it was some sort of psychological warfare tactic that one learned as the Undersecretary of the Minister of Magic (because if it was, it was working), "that you would ask about Rose immediately. She's perfectly fine, by the way-" - Was Scorpius imagining things or did her fingers claw into her husband's leg a little? - "and there's nothing to worry about. Tell me, are you two... friends?"

It was a very strange feeling, going red and going pale at the same time. He supposed that the technical term must be something like 'going blotchy'.

"Uhm," he uttered, then cleared his throat. "In a way, I'd... I would hope so, yes."

Truth was, plain and simple, that Rose Weasley was hot.

Like, unngh, scorching hot. And pretty and smart and perfect.

And hot.

But her parents _could not know that_ under _any_ circumstances.

Not to mention that he also hadn't really told his own parents anything about it. His father had... issues with everything Potter-, Weasley- or Granger-related – Scorpius didn't know the details, but he knew all of them had gone to Hogwarts together, and that they hadn't exactly been pals, and that somehow there was a ferret involved.

It had taken Scorpius a year and a half before he ever mentioned that Albus Severus Potter was a fellow Slytherin, and that had happened only by necessity because his parents had once decided to watch a Hogwarts Quidditch match – which had prominently featured Al as a beater in green and silver right alongside himself. When he mentioned that Al and he were really good friends – best friends, to be quite honest – his father had stared at him with a twitching eyelid and said nothing for several minutes. Ever since then, Scorpius saw his eyelid twitch when he said Al's name, even though he sometimes made the effort to hide it.

And now he had to somehow make the idea of Rose Weasley palatable for him. _Whoop de do._ Several hundred highly unpleasant things he'd rather try to do came to mind immediately. He drove the pointy corner of his thumbnail into the tip of his index finger and tried to concentrate on preventing acute hyperventilation.

"We, uh, we've got Herbology together, and, uh, she's also into Quidditch, like me. We're in the same year, which... you... probably know. Same age, you know. Just like her cousin, uh, Albus Severus, which... you also... uhm." He closed his mouth, breathed once, then opened it again more carefully. "She's a great person."

No one said anything. The cold draft licked his ankles. His father's eyelid twitched, and so did the muscle in Mr Weasley's cheek.

"And, uh, a great student, too," he added lamely. "Like, she's smart as a whip. Smartest witch in our year." He somehow managed to catch the 'And she's totally got your hair, Mr Weasley' before it slipped out of his mouth and covered it with a cough.

"So you wouldn't necessarily say that you are... close?" Mrs Granger probed, then clarified, "Romantically?"

He stared at her like a hippogriff caught in headlights.

"Scorpius." His father sighed his name and somehow managed to cram all his annoyance and displeasure into it. "Are you dating Miss Weasley?"

"Um," he replied. "No,"

The accurate answer would have been 'kinda', but given the circumstances and the environment he thought it was a fantastically bad idea to insinuate things. They might ask follow-up questions and require him to go into detail and he'd rather cuddle with an acromantula than spell out the nature of his thoughts about Rose Weasley – particularly and frequently featuring Rose Weasley's fiery hair, and Rose Weasley's pleasantly curved lips, and Rose Weasley's perky breasts, and Rose Weasley's shapely backside – in front of Rose bloody Weasley's bloody parents.

The thing was, ever since they'd been dancing slow at the Hallowe'en party, slightly tipsy, and he had got a whiff of her hair and a peck on the cheek for his troubles, he had been planning on asking her out and dating her properly. Al had told him to be patient, though, because he had known that she'd been loosely dating Lucas Macmillan at the time, and it had been good advice. He had got himself partnered up with her in Herbology and found out her usual library times, so they had been running into each other and hanging out, talking steadily and regularly, getting to know one another better and better. (Well, at least _he_ was getting to know _her_ better. She was the one doing the talking for the most part.)

It was a _kind of_ dating, wasn't it? Scorpius had always liked to think so, at least.

After breaking up with Macmillan three weeks in, Rose was not looking for anyone else – that he knew of, and according to her cousin, at least. Neither was he, naturally. They were hanging out all the time. In Scorpius' limited – if not to say non-existent – experience, that counted as _kinda_ _dating_. He was convinced of it.

He knew that her birthday was on the 18th of January and that her shoe size was five and a half, and that she would freak out over the Quidditch boots signed by Antonia Guarda herself he had got her for said birthday. On the occasion of handing over the present, he had planned to ask her whether she was willing to make things official, feeling in his gut and heart and various other places of his body that she wanted him just as he wanted her.

Dating. Officially. With touching and kissing and stuff.

"But you plan to?" his father asked. "To date her?"

Scorpius knitted his eyebrows, looking from him to Rose's parents and back as if to say 'What's this, then, matchmaking? What year is it, 1589? Do I officially have to ask her parents for permission to court her? Is there a chaperone?' His father had the decency to shrug one shoulder apologetically.

"You see, Scorpius," Mrs Granger said, saying his name yet again and he barely refrained from rolling his eyes, "Rose has big plans for her future. In February, she plans on going to Beauxbatons for a month and a half with the Beaugwartons exchange program. After that, she will have a special tutor to work with her in Charms and Transfiguration because she wants to take her N.E.W.T.s in those subjects already this year in order to be able to attend an international Charms-and-Transfiguration Postgraduate Program in India after the exams in June until September."

Scorpius had known some of this, of course. Rose had told him herself – they had been talking a lot since the Halloween dance, after all, and she hadn't been able to shut up about what a wonderful opportunity 'C.a.T. P.o.P.' was – and he hadn't said that she was smart as a whip for no reason.

Still, it all begged the question what it had to do with him. Accordingly, he followed up on this in the most straightforward way possible. "So?"

"_So_ you don't feature in these plans, boy," Mr Weasley suddenly spoke up and was promptly subdued by his wife again.

"Plans like these are not easily made, Scorpius," Mrs Granger said, talking more loudly than before now, and he bit the lining of his cheek _hard_ to keep from commenting, trying to find something to look at that wasn't Mr Weasley's angry visage or Mrs Granger's cunning face lest his expression gave away just how annoyed he was quickly becoming with this whole beating-around-the bush-while-still-making-him-feel-that-he-was-standing-in-the-dock- thing, "so naturally, we have taken absolutely everything into consideration, and have taken absolutely every measure to secure the future our daughter has chosen for herself and has worked so hard for."

Spoken like a true politician. After so many words, Scorpius still didn't have the foggiest notion what she was talking about.

"What Mrs Granger is attempting to say," his father cut in now, another sigh underlying her name, too, hinting heavily at the fact that there was still no love lost between them, which was probably also the reason why this whole shindig was taking place in this of all Manor studies, "is that they have consulted an oracle to secure Miss Weasley's future endeavours."

"Not so much _consulted_, really," Mrs Granger commented quickly, suddenly slightly flustered at the implication. "She just happened to be in town for the week, and she still owed me a favour. But yes, basically." She straightened a little in her seat. "The oracle read our daughter's future in her palm."

Scorpius' eyebrows knitted so much that he feared they might fuse together. "You had some scamster read Rose's palm?"

Four adults drew an audible breath.

His mother was the quickest to comment. "Scorpius, darling, don't say such things. True oracles are respectable people."

"Yes, and rarer than the wisdom tooth of a hen that can play Beethoven's ninth backwards on a recorder," he mumbled, voice full of the annoyance that had accumulated over several years of Divination class, but this cursed room's acoustics made sure that absolutely everyone heard nonetheless. So he went on, with an annoyed huff, "I still don't see what any of this has to do with me. What's the point?"

"The point is, Scorpius," - he didn't even try to prevent his eyes from rolling now, - "that the oracle had a true vision and made a prophecy for Rose which involves you ruining her plans," Mrs Granger said, voice sharp and hard now, all the affected mildness quickly evaporating.

"And what on _Earth_ could I do, _Mrs Granger_," he fired her name back like a missile, "to screw up Rose's plans?" He opened his hands, looking from one adult to the next. "There's nothing short of death that would stop that girl, I think, so-" He paused. "Oh, no. Is _that_ it? Did the oracle tell you I'm going to kill her?!"

Before he could continue with something like 'That's fucking ridiculous' in many variations, he was interrupted.

"Worse," Mr Weasley growled and the look on his face was so cold that Scorpius could practically feel it in his teeth. "You're going to knock her up."

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	2. Chapter 2

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them.)

/

_Whoo, you're still here! Or here again! Whoo!_

_Thanks to __Bridget Narcissa Malfoy for favving and following this story! (Isn't this a bit early...? Not that I'm complaining, mind you :D) And thanks to Guest for the review! I hope you'll keep liking it, it gets a bit... dubious and loopy from here ^^;  
>Also, thanks to <em>_frankthetiger for favving Stars! (After all this time...!)_

_Okay! The story continues, the plot thickens, the sympathetic cringing commences. Enjoy :)_

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><p>~<em><strong>Chapter 2~<strong>_

Silence.

A long, long silence.

Scorpius opened his mouth, then closed it again, then opened it again, and closed it again.

_Shut the fuck up!_ came to mind so loudly that he was sure everyone must have heard.

His knees were suddenly back where they were supposed to be, but the butterbeer had apparently made them squishy so he didn't even dare to take a step toward the chair that was now positively enticing, beckoning like a siren.

And then, the hilarity set in, and the chortled, then coughed, then chuckled, cleared his throat, and finally laughed out loud going, "Whu- hu- hua- t?" Seeing Mr Weasley's and Mrs Granger's enraged faces only made it worse.

"You're not being serious right now, are you? Is this... " He looked around theatrically. "Am I on candid camera?"

"Scorpius," his father merely said, and instantly, the merriness drained away.

Scorpius cleared his throat once more and mumbled, "Sorry," managing to sound sheepish. Turning to Rose's parents again, he said, "Honestly, though, you cannot be serious. I mean we're... we're not even dating or anything, and you're implying that I'd, eh, that- that we'd... get together before February 18th, and I mean..."

He trailed off. Judging by the looks everyone was giving him, saying something like 'Thanks for the vote of confidence and all, but y'all are seriously overestimating my seducing abilities, not to mention my sexual prowess, not to mention- don't you think that at least one of us would be able to operate a goddamn condom?!' would have been a bad call, even though it was right on the tip of his tongue. So he bit the aforementioned tongue tip and said nothing.

"Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag," his father ended the silence with another long-suffering sigh, "I believe we can finally pick up the conversation where we left off when my son joined us. What exactly is it, Mrs Granger, that you were proposing?"

Mrs Granger straightened in her chair and turned her head to the master of the house, the Mild Smile™ back in place. "First of all, just to be clear, Mr Malfoy: Am I correct in assuming that every party involved would very much prefer to avoid the fate prophesied by the oracle?"

His dad steepled his fingers before him on the desk, glanced at Scorpius and then at his wife before looking at Mrs Granger again. "You are correct, Mrs Granger, though not, I assure you, for the same reasons."

"But of course not." Mrs Granger's smile went almost aggressively friendly. She reached down and picked up a handbag that had been standing by her side, hidden from Scorpius' sight behind her own legs and the chair's. "Thankfully, differing reasons are irrelevant to the proposal, Mr Malfoy, given that we're all in agreement regarding the desired outcome," she said as she flipped open the petite bag – expensive and magically embiggened, Scorpius noted, when her arm vanished into it almost to the elbow – and fished out a manila folder which she then placed on the desk and slid over to her opposite.

"The measures that should be taken are rather straightforward, foolproof, and have no side effects."

"Measures?" Scorpius asked, but no one took notice except for Mr Weasley who shot him another arctic look.

His parents both leaned over to study whatever was in the folder. He could see his mother's eyebrows going up a bit.

"All we would require is a signature to legally verify your approval of us taking these measures," Mrs Granger explained with a casual air.

"Measures?" Scorpius asked again, even exaggerating the quizzical cadence, yet again no one gave a response.

"Why exactly would _you_ be the enforcing agent?" his dad inquired, eyes still on the paper in front of him, eyebrows raised and drawn together like he always did when reading something he didn't quite understand or agree with.

"Practicality," Mrs Granger replied easily. "My husband knows the spells. They were part of the Auror training."

"Spells?" Scorpius was pleading now.

His father nodded slowly, more at the paper than at Mrs Granger. "And why exactly is the second spell necessary?"

"Because we are thorough," Mrs Granger answered, glancing, for the first time in a while, at Scorpius. Just for a short moment, though, and her expression was unreadable. A politicians' talent.

"We do not simply want to shift the burden upon some other poor girl, which is, seeing the nature of the prophecy, likely to happen. I believe that this coincides with your desires for your family, does it not?"

"Father!" Scorpius called out, and the abruptness and volume of the shout actually made everyone look at him, including his father.

"What's going on?" he asked, voice somewhat squeakier than he wished, taking advantage of the attention. "What are you talking about?"

He knew they were talking about _him_, but somewhere between them informing him of the fact that some kooky soothsayer was of the professional opinion that he would get Rose Weasley pregnant and right now, they had lost him. Quite literally. It was as if, in their heads, he had left the room, amplifying the surprise of him suddenly speaking up.

"What measures? What spells? _What_ _is going on_?"

"Scorpius, darling-" his mother began, but he cut her off.

"Now that I know it, how about I just promise you that I won't- sleep with Rose?" he offered, feeling mighty stupid about the fact that the word 'sleep' made him go red in the face. "Or that, maybe-" He licked his lips, darting a look to Mr Weasley and hoping that he wouldn't jump out of his chair and hit him with a clothesline, then inhaled deeply as if he were about to jump into cold, deep water that had crocodiles at the bottom. "Maybe if you just let Rose go on the pill? And then there's condoms-" Mordred, it sounded wrong to talk like this in front of a bunch of parents. He cringed.

"That's not how fate works, Scorpius," Mrs Granger said with a tone reserved for stubborn five-year-olds. Stubborn five-year-olds who had worn out her patience long ago and were soon in for a slap or two. Her fingers were positively digging into her husband's thigh now. "It takes a more than well-meant suggestions to change destiny."

"Which is why I suggest we haul out the big guns now," Mr Weasley said gruffly to no one in particular, then pointed at his father with a finger. "Hurry up and sign that piece of bumph, Malfoy. We've got places to be."

"I'm sure you do, Weasley," came the tart but deceivingly indulgent reply, and for a moment, Scorpius thought his father would rip the paper up and hand them back the pieces. He could even see the twitch in his hand that always came when he was about to kick someone out of his office.

But instead, he glanced at Astoria once more, a little longer this time, and she pressed her lips together and tilted her head ever so slightly. His shoulders sagged when he sighed, and within the second, a quill was in his hand and his signature was on the parchment with a flourish.

"Dad?" Scorpius spluttered. His father looked up and at him, an unrelenting line around his mouth.

"Sit down, Scorpius. This won't take long."

The way he said it was final. Scorpius found himself sitting before he could even consider contradicting. His still wobbly legs were all for it, too.

The last things he remembered was Mr Weasley pointing his wand at him saying quietly and grimly, "This is for defiling my daughter in the future", and him thinking 'That doesn't make any fucking sense' and, ludicrously, wanting to yell 'I want to see my Minority Report!', and then thinking that he never liked 'Minorty Report' even though he generally liked Steven Spielberg movies – with the possible exception of Indy 4 – and pre-lunacy Tom Cruise, and then a wave of numbness crept through his body, crashed over his head and he blacked out.

/

When he woke up again, he was in his bed. It was light outside, but the kind of light that said 'early afternoon'. He wondered why he had slept that long. He normally was an early riser.

He lifted his head to look at the clock. Quarter past three. He let his head sink.

Then he wiped his eyes and looked again, just to make sure. It still said quarter past three.

He sat up and checked his wristwatch. Quarter past three.

_What the-?_

Then he wondered why he was wearing clothes that were not pyjamas, and a wristwatch.

And then the recollections came flooding back in. The south wing study. Rose's parents. Measures. Weasley pointing his wand-

He jumped out of bed as if stung by a needle and started ripping his clothes off of himself. Whatever the 'big guns' had been that Weasley had said he would 'haul out', it had to do with his body – so much so that he had suddenly felt numb all over and blacked out for an hour and a half – and he felt the overwhelming need to see that everything was still in place and not covered in boils and sores, or that there hadn't been any weird and unattractive additions to his extremities.

Before long, he stood naked in front of the mirror, turning and twisting and checking everything twice, running his palms up and down his legs and torso and wriggling his toes.

"It's all there," he breathed to himself, combing his fingers through his hair once more to check for... horns or antennae, possibly.

It was, indeed, all there. He sighed in relief and looked himself in the eye. "What the hell have they done to me?" he asked his reflection. His reflection shrugged.

Pulling on his pants, he called for Milly. The house-elf appeared with a pop and bowed, unflustered by the display of nudity as always.

"Milly, do I look different to you than normal?" he asked, presenting himself to her and holding out his arms in a broad ta-dah gesture.

Milly eyed him uncertainly. "Y- Young Master Scorpius?" she squeaked, visibly torn between asking what he meant, admitting that she didn't know what he meant, and banging her forehead against the wall repeatedly as punishment for not being able to answer and failing him as a servant.

"Is there anything odd about my appearance?" Scorpius clarified. "Do you see anything on or around me that isn't normally there?"

"Milly isn't thinking so, Young Master Scorpius," she hesitantly replied.

"Do I look ugly?"

"M... Master-"

"I mean, do I have warts on my face?"

"No, Young Master Scorpius."

"Scales anywhere?"

"No, Young Master Scorpius."

"Rashes, gashes, growths, hair?"

"Pimples, Young Master Scorpius."

"Yeah, they're normal, I'm afraid." He sighed. "Thank you, Milly. You may leave."

She did and he moved to put the rest of his clothes back on.

When he pulled on his trousers and then zipped up, a weird tingling sensation went through his middle.

He paused mid-movement, then zipped back down.

Same sensation. A bit like having pins and needles in his... in his... yeah, _there_. That was unusual.

He peeled off the trousers to his thighs, then slid down his underpants and looked down on himself.

It all seemed fine, visually speaking. Normal. He contemplated calling Milly again and asking her once more, about this certain body part in particular, whether there was anything abnormal going on that she could see, but then decided against it, thinking that it might be a tad crass.

Casually, because it was a normal thing to do, he touched himself. He had done that approximately a million times in his life already, it was one of the most familiar actions in general.

Except that now it wasn't like that any more.

There was no feeling – no sensation whatsoever. It was numb. Like his face had been when they had removed his wisdom teeth.

It felt like he was touching a door handle or a cold sausage or something, something that wasn't part of his body, really. It just happened to be attached to him.

Suddenly there was a high, ullulating sound in the air, not unlike a car alarm. He realized that it was coming out of his own mouth.

His knees went wobbly for the second time today and he stumbled backward with his trousers and pants impeding his movements, plonking down onto his bed with his bare ass, his dead appendage still in his hand.

And then he just sat and wailed because between skin problems, lovesickness, examination stress and having to confess his infatuation to the parents of his love interest, losing feeling in his penis is not something a sixteen year old boy can simply take in stride.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	3. Chapter 3

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them)

_/_

_Welcome back again!  
><em>

_Thanks to Guest (you should make that your username, just to confuse people) and to toolazytologin (heh, logging in would have been simpler than typing that name out, wouldn't it?) and BKstories for reviews!  
>Guest: Glad you liked it! Your questions shall be answered forthwith!<br>toolazy: It doesn't show up? I just checked, it does for me, on the website (I don't have mobile). Shows up on my profile page, on the Updated Stories page, and in the search (even though you practically have to search for the whole name sans spelling errors before you find it). Weird...?! But hey, _you_ found it, so I don't much care :3  
>BKstories: LOL Yes, I suppose it is awkward and confusing... But, as they say, a hard beginning maketh a good ending! (Pun not intended, but gleefully accepted.) Seriously, though, get your seatbelt on. This story is prone to swerving wildly.<br>_

_Also, thanks to Vixenette for favving (and following), and- hello, buford12! Thanks for stalking this story ;) _

_Alright, ladies, gentlemen. We need to have The Talk. It's going to be _so_ awkward.  
><em>

* * *

><p><em><strong>~Chapter 3~<br>**_

"How long is this going to last, dad?" he demanded to know as he stormed into his father's office, having decided last minute to say _that_, rather than 'Is this going to be like that forever?!' because he couldn't bear the thought. It made him feel too queasy to even voice out loud.

Milly had told him that his father was in his west wing workroom, a pleasant, airy little chamber located next to the master bedroom where he spent most of his time working. Scorpius would have looked for him there first even without the elf's hint, but he figured that for an entrance such as the one he was just making, he'd have to be sure. There was only one chance at surprising his father, possibly startling him into honesty in a candid moment.

Naturally, his father wasn't surprised in the least. He barely even looked up from his books. "Forty four days," he answered evenly, "which will be enough for Miss Weasley to pack her bags and remove herself from Hogwarts and England altogether. She's leaving for Beauxbatons on the morning of Friday, the 18th of February." He paused, then looked up. His lips formed a wry line, his eyebrows were wrinkled and his entire face spoke of displeasure, exasperation and general paternal discontentation. "Did it _have_ to be a Weasley, Scorpius? Honestly now. The only thing worse would have been a Potter and I'm thanking the merciful Morgane daily that _that_ girl is way too young for you."

Scorpius grimaced. "Can we _please_ not talk about me dating Lily? She's in second year. She's practically still a toddler. God, Dad. Ew." He shuddered. "Also, don't change the subject."

"In my opinion, she'd be exactly as unfitting and unwise a choice as Miss Weasley, really," his father continued on the persistently changed subject. "You knew what her parents are like, what their entire _clan_ is like-"

"I'm not interested in her parents or her clan, dad. I like _her_." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, feeling slightly childish but defiantly ignoring said feeling. "You don't even know her. You've never even seen her, I bet."

His father sighed again – he was prone to sighing these days – and murmured something about 'red hair', a 'stupid complexion' and 'seen one, seen 'em all'.

"So anyway, back to the original subject-matter. What's with this spell?" he demanded to know, keeping his arms crossed.

"I'm sure you have already discovered its main purpose," his father said as he turned back to his papers and books. "That's what it will be doing for the next forty four days." He cleared his throat. "To keep you from getting someone, anyone, pregnant." When he glanced up this time, there was a somewhat angry spark in his eyes, strangely reminding him of Mr Weasley.

Scorpius knew better than to argue, although a whole shitload of stuff to argue about came to mind immediately. Like, for example, that he didn't mean or plan to get Rose pregnant, or that he didn't mean to get _anyone_ pregnant anytime soon, or that he had endlessly fantasized about but never realistically thought about ever being in the position of even potentially getting Rose or anyone pregnant, or that he really wasn't that goddamn popular at Hogwarts in general or with the girls in particular and that therefore, given that he also hadn't shifted into a parallel universe in which he was the protagonist of a porno, the likelihood of him getting anywhere _near_ getting anyone pregnant was so, so, so very low, or that being punished for a crime that hadn't been committed yet was both morally and logically dubious, and even more so when the only "witness" to this crime was likely a common or garden charlatan.

But his father probably knew all that. And he was still angry. In a contained way, to account for the fact that the mistake he was angry about hadn't even been made yet. But angry nonetheless.

"Anything else I should know?" Scorpius asked instead of saying any of the above things, toning down the sharpness of his voice to mollify his father.

The chastening of his temper was immediately acknowledged with an almost imperceptible nod, and the spark subsided.

"The spell will not impede your normal bodily functions, although I suppose it might be more... comfortable for you, for the time being, to sit down when you, well, pass water." He cleared his throat, apparently glad that that was out. "Miss Weasley has been inflicted with the counterpart of this spell, her parents have assured me. The two spells will... Uh, it's fairly complicated. But, imagine magnets. Same poles repelling one another." He made a swishing hand gesture. "That's basically it. To keep you two in particular from- contact."

Scorpius frowned, wondering whether this meant that he couldn't be in the same room as Rose without being pushed out the door by an invisible force and vice versa. Would he have to find a new Herbology partner? Also he wondered whether this effect was purely physical. He heaved a quiet sigh. He'd been _so close._

As if sensing his distress, his father put the quill he had been writing with into the well, took off his thin reading glasses and gave him his full attention, and his best Father's Voice™.

"Look, Scorpius, I don't like to admit it and I swear if you tell anyone I ever said it I might personally drown you in the bathtub and make it look like an accident, but Granger has thought this thing through very well and... she's right. This was the best possible option to avoid the circumstances that need be avoided. If this oracle is to be believed-" He pointedly ignored Scorpius' grimace. "-then fate has really intended for you and Miss Weasley to become parents before mid-February. I do not think that you're in any way prepared for that, and neither is Miss Weasley with all of her lofty academic plans."

Scorpius pressed his lips together in admission. Fatherhood was a thing for the distant, distant future, and he had never even thought about it before today. He was just sixteen years old, for Merlin's sake.

His father made a 'there, see?'-gesture and patiently tilted his head, then continued.

"Thus, measures had to be taken to prevent you from getting her pregnant. But since fate is somewhat hard to persuade and doesn't readily change course, it had to be made sure that you wouldn't just go impregnate someone else instead, as a kind of... fate...ful compromise. This way, both bases have been covered and everyone can be happy."

_Except for me_, Scorpius thought grumpily. _I can't feel my damn cock, dad._

As if he'd heard him, his father shrugged slightly as if to say 'Sacrifices had to be made, son. You are simply going to have to deal with it'.

When Scorpius didn't say anything in reply, he put his glasses back on. "And now we just hope that forty four days are actually enough to make destiny give up and change her mind about you and the subject of fatherhood," he said. "If not..." He trailed off. "Well, let's cross that bridge when we get there."

As usual, Scorpius heard the 'and now shoo, I'm trying to work here' that was always subtext when his father felt that there was nothing else to say about a certain matter. When he reached this state, there was no more talking to him.

It was Scorpius' turn to sigh, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the office, already resigning himself to this new "fate" which didn't sound much more appealing than unplanned fatherhood right now.

/

_~43 to 42 days left~_

The last two days of the winter holidays were the hardest days of Scorpius Malfoy's life so far, by far.

Seriously, the _hardest_ days.

Being sixteen, Scorpius had never before realized exactly how big a role his penis played in his life, up until now that he couldn't use it any more. Literally everything seemed to revolve around it. Lying in bed sleeplessly that first night, staring up at the ceiling, he philosophised that, actually, a penis wasn't all that different from a baby. Rudimentary perhaps – no arms or legs or face oh sweet mother of Merlin better not think about that any more... - , smaller, and (thankfully) a lot quieter, and incidentally bodily attached to the rest of the person, but- really, when you had one, your one mission in life was paying attention to it, keeping it happy and clean and healthy and entertained at all times, and making sure it didn't get caught in or crushed by something because the pain would break your heart. In Scorpius' decidedly overworked and sleep-deprived brain, the parallels were pretty much glaringly obvious and the whole thing made sense.

As was to be expected, his dreams that night featured lots and lots of bare skin and limbs moving in an repetitive yet interesting – if sometimes anatomically dubious – manner.

That day, Scorpius realised what it really meant to be horny and unsatisfied. He had thought that he knew – but he hadn't known. He had thought that it had to do with waiting fifteen more minutes until the end of Herbology class, or with ignoring his chafing Quidditch pants, or with counting the seconds until Al finally fell asleep in the bed next to his so he could rub one out in peace- but no. No.

Actual, real horniness and un-satisfaction was floating weightlessly in a bathtub, enjoying the feeling of fragrant water that had just the right temperature, of massaging bubbles against one's skin, while having all manner of creatively sexy thoughts coursing through one's brain, feeling one's blood rush hotly through one's body, every vein and nerve vibrating and humming pleasantly like a plucked guitar string - and yet being unable to do anything about it.

Or rather, sabotaging himself by conveniently forgetting about the curse that had been put on him, grabbing himself – out of habit – and promptly feeling like dying a little inside from the waist upwards. Shrivelling like the puffapod in the Herbology textbook picture, the one with the time lapse. Bright, lush and green-white in one moment, pitiful, dry and brown and very, very dead in the next. The bathroom tiles vibrated with Scorpius' horrified yells.

Bouts of intense frustration notwithstanding, the aforementioned thoughts and thus the general state of hot- and bothered-ness persisted throughout the day. During his designated study times. During chill-out times he had intended to spend with Star Wars movies and popcorn. During lunch and dinner with his parents who took turns either not meeting his eyes or engaging him in lengthy and utterly uninteresting conversation.

By five thirty a.m. the next morning, Scorpius was twitchy and frustrated enough to scream and bite into his pillow. Which he did, and thoroughly, but which also didn't curb his arousal, inconspicuous and invisible as it now was.

Looking back on the day at nine p.m. that evening, he couldn't even say how he survived the day without clawing someone's eyes out. Suddenly he could empathise with a tomcat in heat that had been locked up. He all but threw his clothes and things into his trunk like chasers throw Quaffles as he was packing up for tomorrow's return to Hogwarts.

He shuddered at the thought of living in constant company, with close to zero privacy, like a non-contagious leper walking the limelight. Al would probably notice right away that something was weird – if they hadn't told him already anyway. What if every Weasley, Potter and their friends had already been briefed? Just how many people in the castle would know that his dick was on forced holiday? He crumpled up one of his shirts and stuffed it unceremoniously into his bag. The coming forty two days would be a _nightmare_. More than that, this could potentially haunt him for the rest of his Hogwarts days, and maybe even after that, in his future. He couldn't even begin to imagine the nicknames.

"Scorpius."

He looked up, suddenly aware that he was throwing an internal tantrum, and sat back on his haunches. "Mum."

She stood in the doorway and smiled one of those apologetic smiles at him, the one where the lips were pressed together and wandered upwards toward the nose, the chin crinkled a little and the eyebrows went up in the middle. Normally, he hated this look, but today he felt like he could use a little sympathy.

His mother came into the room, crouched down on the opposite site of his wide-open baggage and started taking the crumpled up clothes out again, folding them neatly on her thigh or on the floor next to her, stacking them up by her side. "Ah, let me," she said mildly when he insisted that she didn't need to do that.

"You know, darling," she said after a while, when almost all the bag's contents had been transferred to the floor and then, in a very tidy fashion, back into the bag, "Your father and I did not mean to punish you."

"I know-" he started, but she interrupted, "Do you really?" and he bit his lip and said nothing. There was no winning against mums who knew their children all too well.

"We just didn't want to take chances when it comes to your happiness," his mother said. "Just like Rose's parents only want the best for her."

He nodded reluctantly and didn't know what to say to that. Something like_ Yes, yes, it all makes sense and it was the most reasonable course of action, but that doesn't make it seem less unfair to me_ came to mind. Of course, that sounded ungrateful, whiny and stupid, so he didn't say it out loud.

Judging by his mother's expression, she knew that he had thought it regardless.

"Look." His mother let herself flop down on the floor, sitting cross-legged as if she were doing one of her yoga exercises. "How about you use this situation for your own gain?"

"How?" He raised a sceptical eyebrow.

"As a test. A stress test. For your relationship." She glowed at him.

"Mum-" he started to object. _There was no real relationship yet. The little relationship we had is dead. Like really, _really_ dead. _No budding romance would ever survive a parental intervention like that.

"I'm serious, dear." She held out a hand as if to make him stay put. "If the two of you somehow manage this, and then the long separation during Rose's exchange program, you can be sure that it's real. The real deal," she said as if that sounded very impressive.

And it did. A little.

_True love._ Scorpius pressed his lips together as something inside of him constricted with a twinge that wasn't exactly painful at all.

"And you could be sure that the two of you would make it together, in spite of the silly Malfoy versus Weasley issues that even William Shakespeare might have thought too histrionic and camp."

"Mum, I don't think I'm..." _that into her_, he wanted to finish but couldn't because right now, he kinda sorta was _that_ into her. A great majority of his thoughts of the last 48 hours had been redheads. Faceless redheads, to be fair, but redheads nonetheless. That's what _being into someone_ meant.

Didn't it?

"If she doesn't change her behaviour toward you in the coming forty odd days because the prospect of a future with you freaked her out, and if she comes back from France and then takes her super-special-genius N.E.W.T.s and goes to India for three months and then comes back to Hogwarts – and then still wants to be by your side, you're going to marry her." Her eyes sparkled a little at the last two words.

"Whoa, mum!" Scorpius exclaimed, holding up his hands. "Slow down there!"

"I'm still being serious here, Scorpius," she said, smiling.

"And I'm sure you are, but, really, that's..." He trailed off, trusting that she knew what he meant anyway.

"Listen, Scorpius." He did. She was very earnest. Mother's Voice™. "If you find someone who is willing to go through all these trials and tribulations... and to put up with _all of this-_" She made an all-encompassing hand movement, "and still ends up right next to you, you're going to hold on, and hold on tight, you hear me?"

Shrugging, she made a flippant hand gesture.

"And you're going to ignore your father and Rose's parents and their bickering. In fact, I declare that your father is absolutely not allowed to object against such a person. You hereby have the permission – actually, the duty – to be with someone who makes you happy, listens to you, is loyal and true, and understands you, and you're going to be with that someone regardless of her last name. Understood?"

He couldn't help laughing a little in spite of himself, and despite the fact that it suddenly seemed extremely unlikely that Rose Weasley would fit these steep requirements, or that he would ever find a girl who would meet such high criteria.

They finished packing talking about more trivial things – Quidditch, their long-since planned family vacation in Sweden, dinner – which, unexpectedly, was so relieving that Scorpius almost gave his mother a hug at the end. Almost, because being sixteen prevents such things. But she smiled at him on her way out so he had the feeling she knew he had wanted to anyway. He figured that that was what really counted.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	4. Chapter 4

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them)._ Also, seriously, language and sexual situations and themes. Don't say I didn't warn you._

/

_Hello again! It's your daily infusion of Schadenfreude, nice to have you back :)_

_Thanks to Guest, again, for the review! Patience on the Albus part. He'll come in (and you have no idea how f*cking accurate and literal that is, omg lmao) soon! Also: Tut, hush. Don't tell the others, but you're my favourite 'weird guest reviewer'. Don't ever change ^.^ (unless you want to.)_

* * *

><p><strong><em>~Chapter 4~<br>_**

_~39 days left~ _

Two days later he was back at Hogwarts and just walking into greenhouse number 5 on somewhat shaky legs. There were several reasons for this shakiness, reason number one being the snow and icy patches on the frosty ground that were giving everyone a hard time. The winter had been unusually rough, full of icicles that tried to fall down and kill you by impalement, and snow that piled up and then turned hard as rock. The terrain had them all walking like penguins (if they were well coordinated) or newborn giraffes on roller skates (if they were not). Only a day after the holidays were over and Madam Pomfrey's hospital wing was already well filled with the proud owners of broken coccyges, sprained ankles and badly bruised elbows.

Reason number two was the fact that he hadn't recuperated from a shower incident half an hour ago. During his morning shower he had realized that there was a mighty big loophole in Mr Weasley's Comatose Cock Curse (that's what he'd dubbed it, appreciating the amusing and accurate if aggressively arrhythmic alliteration). He wasn't sure whether it was meant to be there for some reason – because it seemed very counter-intuitive and -productive – or if Mr Weasley was just a shite spellcaster whose training in libido-and-sexuality-related hexes was years and years ago.

In any case, he had felt like a normal teenager there for a minute as the jet of water hit him in all the right places and elicited all the right sensations. With them came all the right thoughts and imaginations – quite quickly, because, really, they never really left these days – and suddenly, in his head, there was someone there with him, touching like he had never been touched before except by himself, pressing warmly and wetly against him-

He then looked down on himself and almost cried out in shock when realized that he had a boner. And not just a semi. An honest to goodness erection.

Next, he had _actually_ cried out in shock because there _actually WAS_ someone there with him, just not the person he wanted to be there with him. Anthony Prince and Robert Shrewsbury had walked into the room right that moment, stopping dead in their tracks as they saw him, uh, standing there.

The unpleasantness of being found (supposedly) wanking in a public bathroom in plain sight was instantly trumped by the unpleasantness of the feeling his own hand elicited when he clamped it over his privates to shield them from their view. Said feeling was somewhat reminiscent of an Indian burn, while simultaneously having his jewels dunked into a bucket of very, very cold water. It had made him go limp in what was probably world record time, and his testicles may have curled upwards into his groin a little. If not for the audience, he would have whimpered.

The incident begged massive questions, aside from a whingey _Why me?!_ Why was it possible for outside forces to stimulate him just like always? Was it really a spellcasting error, or had the spellmaker simply assumed that every kind of sexual intercourse would require the man to touch himself at some point – a touch that would wilt him pretty much instantly and was guaranteed to suck all the joy out of the moment?

More importantly – would that mean that, theoretically, if someone else... say, Rose Weasley... were to touch him...?

Which inevitably lead to reason for wobbliness #3: Rose Weasley, who was waiting at the planting station they shared, rubbing her glove-clad fingers vigorously against the cold while talking to Amanda Goldstein.

Scorpius drew in a deep breath and wobbled toward her, figuring that he couldn't possibly put this off any longer anyway. Professor Longbottom was already around and would start the lesson any minute now and they were still table partners.

When he was within earshot, he cleared his throat and said, "Hey."

Rose turned around, smiled slightly and replied, "Hey." And turned back to Amanda to resume the conversation.

Uhm.

Okay.

That was both worse than and not as bad as he had feared, actually.

Not as bad because he markedly did not feel the overwhelming need to flee the scene. There was no force field or tornado-like wind around her that repulsed him. After his father's magnet-analogy he had feared that he would either be physically driven out of her range by the invisible power of her... well, her magically reinforced Scorpius-Malfoy-repellant vagina... (better not think about that one for too long... ) or that he would feel the urge to run away, like a bug being hit with insect spray, or any person with a normal sense of smell getting a whiff of Axe deodorant.

Also, he had feared that she would be cold toward him, which was not the case.

Well. Not really. Not as far as he could tell, at least. Had that been a genuine smile? She didn't seem particularly stand-offish or frosty.

No. Much worse than straight-up cold, she seemed luke-warm.

Scorpius didn't know how to handle that.

Professor Longbottom entered the greenhouse at that moment and the lesson began. Scorpius only listened with half an ear because the opposite side of his brain was occupied with thoughts relating to Rose and her behaviour and her every movement and boners and showers with boners and Rose and-

"Malfoy!"

"Wh-What?" He blinked. Since when had he been standing here, in front of the planting table, with Rose Weasley on the other side? And since when had that puffapod sapling been in his hand? He almost dropped it because it squirmed.

"Could you focus?" Rose had a bowl of greyroot ash in one hand and a garden trowel in the other, clearly waiting for him to do something.

"Sorry!" he almost yelled and hurried to put the puffapod into the hole. "Sorry," he repeated, mumbling, as he scooped some earth around the plant's base and gently pushed it down. "It's been a crazy few days." _And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to..._

Rose tsked and rolled her eyes, then sprinkled some ash over the planted sapling and proceeded to almost drown the poor thing with water. "You know, you're not the only one," she said as she dug another sapling-sized hole.

"Oh, I- I know, I know," Scorpius said hastily. "I didn't mean-"

She sighed. Loudly and annoyed enough to actually make him fall silent. And he could have sworn that Amanda Goldstein and Michael Bowen who were working together on the next table fell silent as well, just through the power of that annoyed sigh.

"Look, Malfoy," Rose said evenly. It had never bothered him that she called him by his family name when others were in earshot before, but now it did. "Let's get through this lesson, and after that, we talk a bit and clear this up. Okay?"

He nodded and said, "Uh. Okay", knowing full well that he really didn't have much of a choice.

His knees were weak and his thoughts raced the entire class, but thankfully there wasn't much walking or talking involved in their work, so it didn't particularly stand out.

By the end of the one hundred and twenty minutes of shovelling dirt and pruning greenery while listening to Professor Longbottom's lecture about care and usage of the plants they were tending, he had a grand soliloquy laid out and ready. He had re-worked his mother's encouraging words about standing a test and building a future together, introducing them with heartfelt apologies for something he hadn't yet done – and, as it looked, would never do... unless she wanted him to... – and the emotional unfairness of it, concluding the whole thing with an upbeat message about faithfulness and the veracity of his feelings. Somewhere in there, there even was a quip about parents and the sex talk. It was a speech worthy of a John Hughes movie. It deserved a soundtrack.

Said speech deflated quicker than his morning shower erection when Rose's first words to him as she led him between the greenhouses after class were, "Can you switch tables with Michael starting next week?"

He blinked and asked, "What?"

This was not at all how he had imagined things to go.

"I think it's really weird, being, like, close now." She shrugged, a movement that was almost imperceptible underneath at least five layers of clothing.

He blinked again, trying to make sense of what was happening. "Rose, what...?" A thought came to him. "Is this because of... You know. The spell. Your parents put... the spell..." _On your... your..._ He couldn't even think it. _Are you having repellent feelings about me?_

She didn't even pick up on his awkwardness. Instead, she cocked an eyebrow and said simply, "No, it's not. It's just that I don't want you to be, like, close to me any more."

He stared at her. Something inside of his chest died a small and quiet yet painful death.

She sighed regretfully as if she had just realized that her last sentence sounded really sort of cruel. "It's not... Look, that came out wrong. It's not a physical thing or anything. I just don't want to give you, like, the wrong impression. Especially because it seems that you had the wrong impression from the start, and I'm really sorry, but I always thought of you as a friend." She paused. "Or, you know, like, a fellow student. Occasional study partner. An acquaintance. That's it."

"B... B-but-" he spluttered. _Acquaintance._ If words, turned to thoughts, had a taste, this one would taste like licking an ashtray. "But we- On Hallowe'en, we danced-" _And then we talked for hours and hours and we spent so much time together and I taught you how to brew a damn near perfect Chelidonium Meniscula when I should have been studying for the Runes test and I got you boots with Antonia Guarda's autograph on it for your birthday, goddamn it-_

"Gosh, I danced with _so_ many guys last year," she said airily. With a contemplative look toward the sky she continued, in a dreamy voice, "And with a few girls, too. I still think I may have snogged Marcy afterwards, but she was also drunk and no one saw us, so yeah, we'll never know for certain. Don't you dare tell anyone that, by the way." She pointed a threatening, mitten-covered index finger at his face, then sighed again and quipped, "You know, I really can't hold my liquor, and someone spiked the butterbeer."

Bam, bam. So much for that peck on the cheek. Also, Rose Weasley had snogged Marcy Mills-Foster. Sweet Merlin, that was cruelty wrapped in a thin coating of chocolate. Scorpius was shocked into a petrified silence.

"The prophecy really surprised me because I never really thought of you that way, Scorpius," she went on matter-of-factly. "I suppose that you probably _did_ think of me that way, but I don't want to encourage it, for obvious reasons. We're not, like, a Capulet and a Montague, you know? I wouldn't want you to read things into my actions and have your fantasy run away with it. So I'd like you to switch tables with Michael or someone else, to make things easier for you."

_Don't say it, don't say it._

"We can totally still be friends."

… _ugh._

"Like, I still consider you a friend. You're such a likeable person, Scorpius."

_You can totally stop talking now._

"My parents told me so much about your father lately, I have to say I'm glad you're really not like him at all."

At that, Scorpius frowned and glowered at her but Rose was busy waving at Amanda and Suzanne who were waiting for her to catch up near the greenhouse entrance so she didn't see his look.  
>"Anyway, I hope we can both, like, overcome this and just be fine. You know? Hey, I gotta go or I'll be late for Divination. See you."<p>

And then she was off, running as fast as a penguin could, catching up with her two friends and vanishing around the corner without a look back.

Scorpius stood there, feeling the cold seep through the soles of his boots, seep all the way up to his chest and make a permanent home there, and tried to grasp what had just happened.

No wonder Mr Weasley had almost lynched him. If Rose had told her dad exactly what she had told him right now – using words like "acquaintance", no less – then he probably imagined that he would only get her pregnant through coercion, possibly rape. That actually justified the growling and glowering.

And no wonder Mrs Granger had talked down to him like she had. She had seen him, the Malfoy kid, son of Draco Malfoy whom she despised intensely if politely, harbouring a crush for her daughter, so convinced that the feeling was mutual that he had proposed condoms and pills because he'd been so sure that something would happen between him and Rose... She must have thought him some kind of deluded idiot.

He stood there between the greenhouses until it felt like he was freezing to the spot. Only when Professor Longbottom emerged and saw him standing there did he trudge up to the castle, ending up late for Runes and earning himself a detention.

He didn't much care.

/

_~Still 39 days left~_

Idiot. His every thought revolved around that concept throughout the day, albeit cloaked in new vocabulary like twat, dweeb, moron and fool to keep it fresh. Even though he was bodily present, he missed the entirety of History class to his contemplations regarding Rose Weasley and the fool that was him.

Chewing on the tip of his quill, he asked himself over and over how he could have been so blind – and also, ironically, how he could have been the opposite of blind, how he could have been so _delusional_, seeing things that hadn't been there.

Rose had spent so much time with him, out of her own free will, although, admittedly, she had never gone out of her way to be in his company... – anyway, didn't that _necessarily_ mean that she liked him more than as an "acquaintance"? He had never seen her be like that with other people or behave like she had toward him toward others except for her fellow Gryffindor pals, so didn't that _absolutely_ imply that she considered him a friend? Or had he just missed the part where she touched other people's – everyone's – shoulders and clapped them on their backs and _hugged_ them randomly and casually, as if out of habit? Did she have several people whom she cavalierly told stuff about her life? About being the eldest daughter of a power mum (who endlessly berated her for electing Divination in fifth year), about having Harry Potter as a godfather, about her future plans, about her phobia of mashed potatoes, about dying her hair black just to freak out her dad, about having an oddly knobby middle toe, about getting _her freaking menses_ in the middle of a Quidditch game...

Were these things she would have told just anyone?

No. No, he decided. She had flirted with him and opened up to him.

"I am _not_ just a measly acquaintance," he thought.

The heads of the entire DADA class – mercifully the last class of the day – turned to him. Albus next to him gave him a raised eyebrow that clearly stated, 'Yeah, you just said that out loud.'

He ducked his head and mouthed a Sorry at Professor Finnigan who promptly deducted two points from Slytherin and then three more when he couldn't tell him which year the kelpies had officially been declared dark creatures.

"I just _mentioned_ it twenty seconds ago, Mr Malfoy. It would help you a lot to just _listen, that's_ not too much to ask, even at this time of day," the professor complained and then proceeded to repeat the last part of his kelpie speech just for his benefit, but Scorpius had zoned out again already.

Even if one assumed the strongest possible tint of wishful thinking, the strongest possible bias, the crassest tendency toward reading meaning into actions that wasn't intended and finding hints and subtexts that weren't there, Scorpius refused to believe that Rose had been completely disinclined. No. She had certainly made all the right moves – _especially_ since he wasn't prone to wishful thinking and any of the other crap. If anything, he missed signals. Like, all of the signals. Back in fifth year, Al had once mentioned to him that Helen Finch-Fletchley had flirted with him for the entirety of second and third year, to which he had been utterly and entirely oblivious at the time.

Anyhow, Albus... Scorpius glanced at his best friend as he sat next to him, scribbling away on his parchment, and saw with some worry that his notes were almost a cubit long. For a fleeting moment he toyed with the idea of following Finnegan's lesson, but dismissed it quickly because it was hopeless anyway, and because he was very distracted by the persistent and undeniable fact that this Albus Severus Potter had freaking _advised_ him to get together with Rose.

Al presumably knew his cousin very well, and when he, Scorpius, had broken the good news that Rose had kissed him on the cheek and danced close enough for him to feel her breasts pressing up against his chest and smell her shampoo (he hadn't gone into that much detail because, gee, Al was still her cousin, but that was the gist of it), Al had told him to go slow – that counted as "advise to get together with her", did it not?

"Just take it slow, alright?" Albus had said, last year the day after Hallowe'en, he remembered it as if it had been yesterday. "She's still sort-of with Macmillan, so you should probably wait for that to pass..." That had been as clear a green light as he could ever hope to get from Rose Weasley's quasi-brother. As such, did it not also count as endorsement? And as an indirect hint at the fact that there was at least the potential possibility of reciprocation? And as a goddamn friend, wouldn't it have been his goddamn duty to inform him of the fact that Rose had zero interest and couldn't even bring herself to use the f-word in reference to him?

The moment Finnegan announced the end of class, he elbowed Al – none too gently – and said, "I need to speak with you. In private."

Al lifted first one, then both eyebrows. "Yeah, I suppose you do," he said as he stuffed his book into his bag without looking. "You've been acting really strange these last two days."

Well, yeah. He hadn't dared to meet his eye and generally avoided him because he had the suspicion that he had been briefed by the Weasleys... about his... genital situation.

Which, Scorpius supposed, he hadn't been, given that he was wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

Which, in turn, meant that he had pretty much acted like an ass.

Scorpius shook his head. Remorse would only cloud his judgement.

"Bathroom, now," he murmured and quickly led the way. So quickly, in fact, that he didn't even take the time to consider himself lucky to have a friend at whom he could, out of nowhere, grumpily grunt something like 'Bathroom, now!' without him taking it the wrong way, or questioning it, or ridiculing it, or even so much as raising a sceptical eyebrow or two.

Instead, Albus followed him wordlessly, albeit with a sigh.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	5. Chapter 5

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them)

/

_Hey Ringil111, __Lee Talennyn, BKstories and __MattyMasquerade! Thanks for reading and/or stalking and/or reviewing and/or favving this story!_

_Thanks to my weird guest reviewer for two increasingly weird reviews :P I'm sorry, I cannot and absolutely will not promise that Rose isn't totally obnoxious throughout this fic. (*cough*... chapter below...) While writing, this fic kinda became the anti-fic to those mountains (and mountains! and mountains!) of Scorpius/Rose fics and their Romeo/Juliet-connotations (Oh Scorpius, Scorpius! Wherefore art though Scorpius...? ... A Rose by any other name... gah). Also, I regularly destroy the "usual female counterpart" in my stories with varying degrees of cruelty. It's a habit ^^; Dunno what that says about me._

_Alright, guys, gals. We need to have The Other Talk. In a bathroom because, d'uh, that's the title of this story. Enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong><em>~Chapter 5~<br>_**

Having locked the door twice, put a silencing spell on it, locked and soundproofed the windows, checked every stall including the toilets in them as if a fellow student might have curled up in there, his security measures may have been a little overdone, but he figured that it was always better to err on the side of caution.

Albus watched him go about this business with a profoundly sceptical look on his face but otherwise without a comment. Only when he seemed done going through the room did he speak up.

"Scorp, what are you- What's going on? What's this about?" Study group would start in twenty minutes, so he was justifiably anxious to get to the library. Mariella hated it when people were late. Plus, he had planned to swing by the kitchen before.

Scorpius turned toward him, looking at him somewhat darkly, huffed once and said, "Rose."

"Ahhh," Albus went with a sage, knowing nod, then, "What about her?"

"Don't act like you don't know," Scorpius accused, miffed.

"What do I not know?" he asked, and then went on, "Don't tell me. Arendell's in deep, deep, deep, deep snow? God damn, Lily made me watch this damn movie with her ten times in three days, I think my brain might be haemorrhaging-"

"Al!" Scorpius interrupted, pissed off because other people forgetting that he was in the room with them appeared to be becoming a trend. "Rose broke up with me!"

A short, open-mouthed silence.

"You were together?" Al was seriously bewildered and more than a little shocked. "When did that happen?"

"It didn't! That's the point! God!" Scorpius yelled, and his voice echoed from the bathroom tiles, informing him that he sounded a little batshit.

Thankfully, Albus was too mystified by his exclamation to respond, so he had the time to take a breath, put his thoughts in order and try again.

"I really, _really_ like Rose, yeah?" he explained, speaking slowly so neither he nor Albus would get confused. "The last three months, I spent every free second with her or near her because I really, _really_ like her. And I... I proceeded on the assumption that, because she never objected against us spending time together and talking, she liked me, too. Yeah?"

"Yeah?" Albus repeated in the same tone, still visibly not getting it but anxious to hear the end of this so he might make sense of it.

Scorpius briefly debated omitting the entire pregnancy-prophecy-business, but then decided that the narrative wouldn't make much sense without it. Rather, he wanted to touch upon it only very briefly so as to not distract Al from the main point of this conversation.

"But then an oracle read her palm and said that she was fated to become preggers with my child on her birthday party and now she sort of chickens out on me, but not only that, no – she acquaintance-zones me and tells me that she never thought of me like that in the first place and that I should stay away from her because she doesn't want me to get the wrong idea, but really, _you_ telling _me_ to go slow and stuff and wait for her to break up with Macmillan _really_ gave me the wrong idea so I really don't know _what_ to believe here, so care to explain yourself maybe?" He breathed in mightily, then crossed his arms in front of his chest and waited.

Albus' mouth stood open for quite some time, and he didn't even blink.

When he unfroze with a jerk, the first word he uttered, with a strangely distant-sounding voice, was "Preggers?"

Scorpius sighed, mumbled "I knew you'd get stuck on that part," and told him the abridged version of the story, leaving out the specifics at the end that involved a work stoppage of an essential body appendage and magically repellent ladybits.

"So, uhm." Albus had gone to half lean, half sit on the rim of one of the washbasins when Scorpius had come to the part where, according to a fortune teller, he was destined to become first cousin once removed of a child fathered by his best friend within the year. "And you don't think that all of... that...," he gestured vaguely, "sort of lead to Rose turning you down?"

Scorpius was grateful that he had decided to stay on topic. "I thought it might, but, man, she really didn't sound like it." He leaned his head back against one of the stall doors and looked up at the bleak greyish expanse of the ceiling. "She just told me straight up that I was just an 'acquaintance'," he airquoted blindly, "and that she didn't think of me _that_ way even though she thinks I'm 'likeable'," he airquoted again, "whatever that means, and, given all that, she was really surprised about this prophecy and was absolutely all for not letting that happen. Apparently, the best way to do that, in her opinion, was to tell me that we shouldn't be Herbology partners any more and generally just keep lots of air between us, all the while making it very clear that she won't mind. At all."

That thing that had quietly and painfully died inside of him when she had told him this morning was resurrected shortly, only to die once more. Definitely dead this time.

"Man. That's... harsh," Albus said calmly. There was actual empathy in his voice which only served to remind Scorpius that he was angry with him.

"You know what's _really_ harsh, though?" he asked and didn't wait for an answer. "Telling your best friend that it's okay for him to make a pass at your cousin and to try and impress her and flirt with her, and even giving him advice on how to best go about doing that, and at no point telling him that she only hangs out with him on a nearly daily basis because she's apparently got nothing better to do or just wants to be nice or whatever. _That's_ harsh."

In his head, he kept on whining. Three months. All the time and money he had invested. More importantly, the emotional investment. Most importantly – now – the fact that he had been obvious and public about it – at Hogwarts, not at home – and that he would now look like a complete dipshit in front of quite a lot of his schoolmates.

But he trusted that Al knew all of this, so that he wouldn't have to make an even more complete dipshit of himself by spelling it out.

"Hey, remember in first year," Albus began all of a sudden, and Scorpius tore his gaze from the ceiling which he had been staring at for some time to look at him. "When Prince told you _not_ to read the note Isobel Smith had written to him, and you did and you even read it _out loud_ and he punched you in the face?"

He did remember it. Prince's punch had been marshmallow soft. They still had ended up in the headmistress' office and on detention for a week – both of them, which Scorpius had thought outrageously unfair. Still, it seemed to be quite non-sequitur to what ha been said before. "What does this-?"

"Or when Professor Longbottom said _not_ to pull out the primviolet, and you did and everyone sneezed like crazy for the rest of the day?"

He also remembered that. All the sneezing had caused his nose to bleed and he had spend the rest of the day with an enchanted cold towel in the neck dripping down his back, courtesy of Madame Pomfrey. All the others similarly afflicted had got a proper blood-staunching spell and a sherbet lemon, which he had thought very suspect and passive-agressive.

"The point is, Scorp – you are a habitual non-conformist. Sometimes you're even bordering on O.D.D., but mostly, you're just a bloody stubborn git who thinks he must prove to everyone that he's smarter. And I honestly say that with love," he added, deadpan. "When someone tells you _not_ to do a thing, it's almost guaranteed that you're gonna go and do that thing."

Scorpius tightened the knot of his crossed arms and started to object, but Albus got up from the basin and talked over him.

"Remember second year, when you were absolutely certain you only wanted to be Seeker, like your dad was, and you absolutely didn't want to try out for or play any other position?"

He also remembered that quite vividly. Those stupid try-outs had almost destroyed their friendship. Luckily they were both naturally competitive and it had all worked out in the end because they had both made the team, side by side.

"Back then, Annabelle Warren was the Slytherin seeker, though, and she was bloody good at it. Much better than you, because she had six years of experience on you, and you were a scrawny second-year know-it-all. You'd never have made the team." He tilted his head. "Except that I told you absolutely _not_ to try out for Beater."

He gaped at him. Albus just shrugged and made a ta-dah-gesture. "And here you are, Slytherin Beater five years in a row. Halfway decent, too."

Pointedly ignoring the jibe at his athletic performance – because they both knew that he was, by a pretty wide margin, the more successful and valued Beater of the team, thank you very much – he squinted. "You... You think you manipulated me into-?"

"I don't _think_, I _know _I did, man. Face it, I know you better than you know yourself," Al said without a hint of modesty and shrugged again. "Not that you're so fantastically hard to figure out, really."

He didn't know whether to cry or laugh at that, so he just shook his head and half-chortled, half-huffed. This was not how he had wanted this conversation to go at all. Speaking of which, the reason why they were having this unexpectedly disclosing encounter in a boy's bathroom-

"So when you told me that you liked Rose after last year's Hallowe'en party," Albus went on as he returned to the basin sill and sat down on it, suddenly significantly less cheerful, "and asked me about her – effectively asking me permission – ... what could I have done?"

He folded his hands in his lap, let the question sink in for a second, then answered it himself.

"If I had told you that she's off-limits just because she's my cousin – and, really, we grew up so close that she's practically my sister – and you two together is really kind of... awkward... that would only have solidified your crush. You'd've secretly pined for her from a distance, though, and you'd've hated me for having to do that. I didn't want to do that to you, or to myself. Not to mention that that's really not my call to make. So saying that was out of the question."

Albus sighed as he relived the dilemma of three months ago, apparently both relieved to finally get this off his chest and anxious about what consequences this revelation would entail.

"If I had told you that she told me that you're not her type, you'd have refused to believe me. You'd have suspected other reasons, called me a liar and probably been angry at me, and then you would have completely and utterly focussed on her. Out of spite and habitual defiance, just like you focussed on becoming a Beater in second year after I told you not to. And that would have been shite for all three of us, Rose included, because you're... really just not her type. So that was out of the question as well, even though it would have been the truth, really."

Scorpius listened, open-mouthed. He could hardly believe his ears. This dude... he had never told him _any_ of this. Not even hinted at it (as far as he knew, anyway). He'd had no idea that Al had been carrying all of this around with himself. _Maybe I really _am_ blind?_

Also_, not her type_?!_ Boy, it would have been nice of her to friggin' brief me on this at some point._ Just the tiniest heads-up would have been enough. And maybe cut back on the hugging and touching his arm and ruffling his hair and stuff...?

"But you asked me a question, and it's just bad manners not to answer, especially when it's your friend asking sincerely in a matter of the heart, and you were already head over heels with her anyway, so I could hardly have said nothing, either. That would've made me a prick. Therefore, instead of either encouraging _or_ discouraging you, I told you to go _slow_ instead, in the vain hope that this would make you _not go at all_. I hoped your fascination with her would wear off, or that going slow would not be your thing, or that she'd be fair to you and eventually stop stringing you along like that." He paused, as if to consider whether or not to go on, then said, "I didn't want you to get hurt, you know?"

Of all the stinging things he had said in the past three minutes, that last part there stung the most for some reason. Eyes narrowed, he probed, "What do you mean, 'string me along'?"

This clearly wasn't just 'She told me before that you are not her type so I knew she was faking it all along' – these things can and do change, after all, especially over periods of time as long as three damn months full of flirtatious glances and favours and trips to Hogsmeade and stuff. And maybe, just maybe, she could have told her cousin this to assure him that she wasn't getting together with his best friend, making things, as Albus had mentioned, awkward.

No, this rather sounded like 'I continually knew that she continually didn't really like you – but I continually chose not to tell you.' The thought sent a weird pang through his chest. Anger and disappointment in a weird mix with a dash of something he couldn't put his finger on, except that it made him gnash his teeth.

Aptly, Albus sighed again and looked contrite. "She, uh. When I confronted her – which I did two or three times since Hallowe'en – she sort of beat around the bush a bit and made some noises about how you're a great guy and nice and not half bad for a Malfoy, but I'm afraid that... in the end... it boils down to the fact that you... were... really good for her Potions mark."

Silence.

A leaky water tap went _drip drip drip_.

"Wow." There was nothing more that Scorpius could say, really. Nothing else came to mind, at least nothing that didn't involve swearwords better not uttered in front of her cousin/quasi-brother. (Connor Thicknesse had called Lily Luna a 'ugly warthog' some months ago when she started wearing glasses and he had ended up dangling headfirst from one of the Quidditch hoops the day after. No one knew who had done it, Connor absolutely refused to tell, and no one had ever been punished, but Albus and his older brother James Sirius had both seemed rather smug the whole week long.)

"Yeah. She... I'm sorry, Scorpius." The fact that he said his full name lent a gravitas to the message that rested as heavily on Scorpius' shoulder as a warm hand.

"Heh," he made, instead of saying 'thanks' or 'fuck off' or 'it's not your fault' or 'fuck you, too'.

He supposed that he should be almost glad that Rose's rejection really didn't have anything to do with the spell inflicted upon them both by her dad, seeing that it preceded all of the oracle business. If that spell had actually ruined something, it would have been really tragic. But right now, 'glad' was on the far side of a puddle full of disappointment and self-loathing, and he felt like wallowing in that puddle for a day or three. Maybe trying to drown himself in it.

Silence again. Eventually, Albus huffed and got back on his feet.

"If you want to demand... like, reparations of any kind-"

"Shut up, Al," Scorpius grumbled. "Not funny."

"Not joking," he answered. "It was a bad thing to do. I should have told you. Even if I meant well, I really fucked this one up. So..." He trailed off.

Scorpius nodded. Not in agreement, but to acknowledge that he'd been spoken to while not being ready to offer a verbal response.

"I suppose you're not coming to study group now?"

Mariella Lawless, a fellow sixth year Slytherin, had orchestrated a study group at the beginning of the year, a semi-official weekly meeting at which homework assignments and study projects could be discussed and done in cooperative efforts. Attendance was very good and consistent – all sixth year Slytherins were there – due to the actually helpful nature of the group as well as the abrasive personality of its founder who got really pissy really easily when people didn't show.

Scorpius figured that this once, Mariella could just take her angry bleating and shove it. He shook his head 'No, I'm not coming because I rather feel like dying right now' and Albus sighed.

"I'm really sorry, man," he repeated, then shouldered his book bag and left, looking back at him as he closed the door as if he still wanted to say quite a lot but didn't know how, or knew, but also knew that Scorpius didn't want to hear it right now.

The second the door was shut, Scorpius almost wished he would come back, if only to keep him company and distract him from a variety of facts, such as a) that the world was a cruel, cruel place in which people were simply exploited all the time, and b) that Rose Weasley was a heartless cow, and c) that this bathroom really smelled like a bathroom, ugh, and d) that he was officially a gigantic idiot. It was surprisingly disheartening to be a gigantic idiot by himself. It hadn't been quite so awful with Albus Potter there.

Not even ten minutes of sighing and imaginary wallowing-in-puddles later, he decided to go to study group after all, if only to distract himself mainly from facts b) and d) and to escape the smell mentioned in c). While Mariella was biting his head off for being late, Albus moved over to the next seat to make room for him.

The second he was sitting, three people thumped their finished potions assignments down on the table in front of him for proofreading.

Al gave him a contrite side glance that spoke volumes.

Scorpius sighed, figuring that fact a) was simply an inescapable axiom of nature, made a waving gesture at Albus' sheepish expression, and got to work. _**  
><strong>_

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	6. Chapter 6

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them)

/

_Hey Swiften and Harry-Potterfan26! Thanks for reading & following :)_

_Weird Guest Reviewer: As usual, thanks for r&r'ing! It seems I have succeeded, for making people hate Rose was the plan, sort of. Still, everyone is using Scorpius... or are there exceptions...?  
><em>

_Another (slightly less weird...?) Guest: Hey there, welcome! Thank you for reviewing, love! I'm glad you like it and hope there's much chuckling still to come._

_... well, maybe not in this chapter. On top of that, it's woefully short. Sorry about that. I'll try harder next time =_= Still, (please) enjoy!_

* * *

><p><strong><em>~Chapter 6~<br>_**

_~Roughly 38 days left~_

The following few days passed very quickly, as if they were also in a hurry to get away from that day that saw Scorpius unfriended at the greenhouses and then set right by Albus Potter in an extra-smelly bathroom. Scorpius dove head first into Runes and Charms post-Christmas-exams and sat down with Amanda Goldstein to discuss their future cooperation in Herbology, having previously talked to Michael Bowen to make sure he was okay with this.

(He was. A bit too quickly for Scorpius' liking. However, he dismissed the thought as it came with a bunch of jealous baggage, telling himself that Michael was only thrilled because it would certainly mean better grades and easier going in Herbology for him. Rose had a green thumb, and Professor Longbottom clearly liked her.)

Meeting Amanda in the library on Thursday evening, he became suddenly and intensely aware that, ever since Hallowe'en and possibly even before that, he had really, really focussed on Rose Weasley and disregarded all the other girls around him.

Amanda, for example, was really pretty in the soft library light. Her strawberry blonde hair was sleek and shiny, she had a cute little retroussé nose and bright blue eyes. Her eyebrows were a little too bushy, to be fair, and her chin jutted out quite a lot, but all in all, she was far from unattractive.

Amanda's friend and fellow Hufflepuff, Sophie Cattermole, was also not ugly at all. She was a bit on the chubbier side, her face was pleasantly heart-shaped, bubbly cheeks emphasized by her brown bobbed hair, and she had full, pink lips that tended towards a sweet little smile at all times. When she came to pick Amanda up after Scorpius' and her short conversation in the library, she favoured Scorpius with one of these smiles, and he found himself readily smiling back.

Oddly, even Constance Bagman, a fellow Slytherin and the unofficial Karen Smith to Mariella Lawless' Regina George, suddenly caught his eye. Her dark blonde hair, normally pulled to an almost impossibly tight pony tail, was down in loose ringlets that spilled over her shoulders. She stopped wearing that awful toxic green eyeshadow and only said "like" twice in a full five-minute conversation with Scorpius at breakfast the next day – one of the first conversations they had _ever_ had. To that occasion, she sat down next to him, which she had also never done before in six years as far as he recalled. When they got up for Transfiguration lesson, their thighs touched.

In said Transfiguration lesson, he was paired up with Ravenclaw's Kate Macmillan, who had always struck him as too waifish, too lolita-like, as if she were eternally eleven years old, but now he was giving her a second glance, it was really not so bad. Granted, she did look like a fragile little starling, but she also had a pleasant smile and a cute nose that, which he observed while Kate transfigured a toothpick into a matchstick, was dusted with freckles. Also, her teeth were perfect which he had the chance to observe when the transfigure-matchstick actually lit up after she struck it.

"Huh. Isn't the timing a bit... odd?" Albus asked that evening as they got ready for bed and he told him of his various encounters with the feminine side of Hogwarts.

For a second, Scorpius felt hot and prickly in his pyjamas, thinking that Albus was referring to the circumstance that he was being kinda-sorta flirted with when he didn't have the working equipment to do anything about it really – the female attention had, of course, constantly reminded him that something important was missing from him – but then he realised that he still didn't know about that, and that he was talking about Rose. Rose Weasley and her quasi-dumping him just a day before.

Huh. He'd pretty much forgotten about that. How had that happened?

"I don't know," he answered Al's question after a slightly too long pause. "Maybe it's the girls' hive mind at work or something."

Al snorted in response which constituted all he had to say about that. Even though he didn't share the wisdom with him, moments like this always had Scorpius thinking that Albus Potter was secretly the Mr Miyagi of girls and understanding them. Like he just knew how they ticked. It was a kind of superpower, easily ill-used, so it made sense that Al hadn't had a girlfriend since dating Kamya Patil for two months in third year. Scorpius suspected that he was waiting for the ultimate challenge, the unreadable girl, the one that baffled him.

Personally, Scorpius was just glad that he had the opportunity to be his quasi-student. Or, well, to just be near him and perhaps catch some of that wisdom as it radiated off of him.

The fresh impression of beautiful girls swarming all around him lulled Scorpius to sleep. His dreams were populated by said girls, much more beautiful even than in real life and about two hundred times as alluring because they tended to be in a state of undress and in the middle of physically demanding exercise.

He woke up to the thought of Rose Weasley – or maybe just some redhead – kissing Marcy Mills-Foster, and wasn't at all surprised that his blanket formed a tent around his middle. With the better half of his brain still asleep that Friday morning, he slid his hand down his pyjama pants.

He almost instantly regretted his decision.

Albus and Brice Parkinson, whose beds were right next to his on either side, woke up from his muffled yelp, but both of them just grumbled something about 'half an hour, for feck's sake' after a peek at their bedside clocks and went right back to sleep.

This second incident, he figured ten minutes later while in the shower, washing away that horrible sensation, begged another bunch of questions that were now piled on top of those he had already had from the first incident – the Shower Slip-Up – four days ago. He promised himself to go look for answers at the earliest possible convenience.

Strangely, it was difficult to find a moment for himself now in which he could go to the library and inconspicuously browse through books on sexual jinxes. There always seemed to be something to do and someone to talk to – and that someone almost always tended to be female, and oddly attractive or generally pleasant and distracting.

Tami Patil and Gemma Reedy, Slytherin's current Keeper, seventh year, and Chaser, fifth year, respectively, caught him on Saturday as he was on his way to the library, asking him to come to the Room of Requirement with them for some winter break Quidditch practice that required someone who would shoot Bludgers at them. He could not bring himself to say no.

The next day, Constance suddenly popped up behind him in the Slytherin common room asking for some special assistance with her Potions essay in exchange for unspecified favours that were to be done at an also unspecified point in the future. (She said this with a strange and pleasant lilt in her voice and a coy smile that was entirely new to Scorpius.) So he held the private Potions session right there in the common room. Constance sat on the couch next to him and their thighs were touching yet again even though he kept discreetly scooting over.

The same day, at the library just an hour before its closing time, he met Sophie Cattermole in front of the shelf he had also meant to browse, holding a book called 'The Magic in Kama-Sutra'. She blushed furiously, spluttered something about academic interest while she tried and failed twice to put the book back on the shelf, but didn't scamper off when she finally succeeded. Instead, she actually engaged him in a conversation – just small talk – that lasted until Madam Pince threw them out, and then even went on for a bit in the corridor. Only when she asked him whether he wanted to accompany her to the kitchen for a late evening snack did he decline – politely and with actual regret – and part ways with her.

"Seriously, it's like I'm suddenly magnetic," he told Albus when he encountered him in the largely deserted Slytherin common room on his way back. He was writing a letter home and only shortly glanced up with a smirk.

"Must be the irresistible Malfoy charm," he said with a cocked eyebrow, then promptly got back to his letter.

Scorpius flopped down on the armchair across from him. Somehow he didn't want to be brushed off like this, so he said, "Or perhaps it's your uncle's doing."

That made Albus pause mid-word. "My uncle?" he asked, taken aback. "What's _he_ got to do with any of this?"

Now he had his attention, Scorpius didn't know quite what to do with it. He shifted a little in the chair, unwilling to disclose embarrassing facts, but he could hardly just say nothing, either. _Huh. So this is what it must have felt like for him three months ago._

Eventually, he settled for, "I told you about, uh, the thing with Rose's pregnancy, right? The fate thing? The oracle and destiny and stuff?"

"Well, you _mentioned_ it. In passing," Al mumbled, sticking his quill into the inkwell, reminding him that he had never cared to properly explain any of it.

"Yeah, well. Her parents totally bought into that palm reading and _really_ didn't want that pregnancy to happen, so they came by the manor and they... well, your uncle put a spell on me."

Albus knitted his eyebrows in supreme confusion. "My uncle put a spell on you to keep you from knocking my cousin up and now you're the... human equivalent of catnip?"

"Yes. Basically. Well. No. I mean-" He exhaled. "It's hard to explain and it really doesn't make much sense, I suppose. I've been meaning to research it, but I kinda haven't got around to it yet."

"I agree, it really doesn't," Al picked up the 'it really doesn't make much sense'-bit with a heavy hint of sarcasm. Then, his expression changed a little. "Should I be worried for you or something?"

"No." He shrugged, then, with awareness of the fact that his recent physical reactions hinted at some sort of spell-miscasting, amended, "I mean, I don't think so."

"Wow. That's comforting," Al groused and turned back to his letter, apparently miffed that Scorpius wasn't willing to say anything more at this point but unwilling to probe into it any further, therefore putting on a show of how little he cared about it. Simple reverse psychology.

For some reason, this bothered Scorpius. He leaned his head against the armchair's back rest and puzzled over it for a bit. Quickly he decided that it was indifference in general coupled with a latent inability to keep secrets from Albus, even if they were mortifying, that bothered him.

Thus satisfied even in an underlying state of dissatisfaction, he got up and walked toward the dorm, mumbling about going to bed.

"Hey, Scorpius," Albus suddenly spoke up.

He stopped in his tracks. His full name out of Al's mouth was always like an omen, a harbinger of meaningfulness.

"Yeah?" he went as he turned his head, as nonchalant as possible.

"Hey, uhm..." He seemed to be searching for the right words for a moment, then said, "You probably know that Tuesday is Rose's birthday. She wants to celebrate at Hogsmeade on Saturday."

Scorpius knew that his heart was supposed to plummet a little. He was supposed to think about the present he'd got her a month ago, calculating that she would be thrilled and eternally grateful for it and that maybe another peck on the cheek – or, ideally, more – would be in it for him. He was supposed to think about all his carefully laid out – if, in practice, really rather vague – plans of asking her out and making it official between them and proceeding from there into a pink-tinged future.

But really, his heart only gave the slightest twinge, and that, he later reasoned while lying in bed with his eyes open, might only have been because he had rather hoped to spend the Hogsmeade trip with Albus and Shrew, and not so much because of Rose.

Thus, he sighed and replied, "Do you have a present yet?"

Apparently, this was not what he had expected in terms of a reaction. "Uh, no." He pursed his lips. "I guess that makes me a shite cousin. I really don't know what she'd like."

He actually looked quite unhappy about it and Scorpius knew that he was thinking about how Rose had given him that neat scarf for his birthday last November. It was self-made, Slytherin-coloured and came with a stitched-on snake that would dance as if charmed when you looked at it and moved your head right.

In fact, it was quite noteworthy that he wasn't wearing it right now, seeing that it was by and far his favourite.

"Actually, I've got something," Scorpius said after a short moment of consideration. "You can give it to her as your present, if you want. It's at home, though. I'll have to ask mum to send it here."

Over the whole drama and the disappointment, he had half-forgotten, half-pushed the boots to the back of his mind, only remembering them when he was already on the Express back to Hogwarts. Ever since Rose's rejection, this lapse had almost been a little lucky coincidence – after all, he would have hated to lug the (sturdy and thus not particularly light) footwear to school only to find that he couldn't even give them to her as a present. Now he would need them after all. _I wonder what mum will make of that..._

Al made some noises about how that wouldn't be right, but Scorpius insisted. After all, what's the use of a pair of size five-and-a-half woman's Quidditch boots for a sixteen year old boy with size seven feet?

Some minutes of arguing back and forth later, Albus gave in on the matter. As Scorpius, satisfied with winning the argument, started towards the dorm again, he said, "So you don't mind if I, well, go to her party?"

Now it was Scorpius' turn to knit his eyebrows. "What are you talking about? Of course I don't. She's your family, so of course you'll go to her party." He was a little surprised at himself how easily these words came.

"No hard feelings, then?" Al asked one last time.

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "Man, you're too sensitive," he mumbled. Aloud, he said, "No, no hard feelings at all. None whatsoever. You go to her party and have fun. Don't tell her about the present, though. And maybe don't get shitfaced. I need your assistance in the DADA test the Monday after."

Al nodded. "So... Does this mean you're over her?"

This made Scorpius pause. Just a short second, though. "Yeah," he said. "Yes, I think it might be, actually."

As he lay in bed later, he crossed his fingers and hoped and prayed that this wasn't just some freak side-effect of Mr Weasley's spell, or a passing feeling (or passing _lack _of feeling, as it may be). Al had seemed so relieved, just like he felt. He really didn't want things to go back to awkward and idiotic.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	7. Chapter 7

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because I like them).

/

_Weird Guest: Heh, Scorpius would totally deny that. (For now...) What tipped you off ^^? And how about vice versa, Albus having interest in Scorp? Thanks for reading, darling._

_Be ye warned, this chapter is nice and wordy and also veers off toward silly. A little. Okay, a lot. In certain places. I had too much fun writing it, is what I'm saying. _

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><p><strong><em>~Chapter 7~<br>_**

_~33 days left~_

Draco Lucius Malfoy had taught Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy a great deal of things. Eating with a knife and fork, convincingly crying on command, walking, talking, and flying on a broom were among these things, and Scorpius was grateful for all those, but right now he valued, more than anything, a certain spell his dad had taught him when he was twelve or thirteen.

This spell, easy to cast, foolproof, and always effective, was used to manipulate the cover pictures and titles of any type of printed media.

For example, if one thirteen year old Scorpius Malfoy had borrowed a Muggle porn magazine from Brice Parkinson – and this was purely hypothetical – and brought it home, then had proceeded to – hypothetically – hide it rather badly in a moment of carelessness so his mother would find it next time she entered the room, this spell would transform the busty, spread-eagled and pretty much naked blonde pin-up into the Russian Quidditch pro Yaroslav Yaroslavich, and the "10 Ways to Make Her Scream" into "The 10 Most Promising Newcomers of the Season". It was a very basic glamour, easily penetrated, and wore off rather quickly, but it was enough to save Scorpius Malfoy a shitload of trouble from his rather conservative mum. Hypothetically speaking.

Right now – on Monday evening, two hours before library closing time – Scorpius Malfoy was non-hypothetically appreciating this same spell as he heaped another tome formerly titled "Sex Magic & Sex Curses" (or something similar that, in any case, featured the s-word very frequently and in conspicuously big letters, hinting clearly at the fact that the author was compensating for something) onto a smallish pile on his work table. There were four other books already, now ostensibly dealing with herbs, more herbs, potions, and trains – model trains, to be exact – so that Scorpius would have a mighty hard time explaining his highly eclectic research to anyone who might ask about it, but it was still easier to explain than tomes titled "Magic Down Under – Magical Genital Afflictions, Curses, Cures" or something.

As he flipped open the topmost book, he wondered why the hell none of these were in the restricted section to begin with. Or at least had a PARENTAL ADVISORY - EXPLICIT CONTENT sticker on them.

Fifteen minutes later, he understood why no one thought to lock these away, or why the Hogwarts staff wasn't afraid that students might misuse them, or why no Hogwarts student had glanced into any of them in years.

It was because they were boring.

They were research products from a strictly scholarly point of view, they came without any sort of picture or illustration, there was nothing even close to sexy in them, and by Merlin, they were _dull_. Leave it to scholars to make books about sex boring.

It took him almost one hour of languidly flipping through pages and pages of small, tightly printed text until he actually hit something that sounded relevant to his situation. He sat up from where he had slouched in his chair and read.

"Tactus Torporis" - the touch of anaesthesia, or the numbing touch – "was first created in anno Domini 1278 and has widely been used by authorities in combating and punishing sexual offences since the early 14th century."

He hmm'ed to himself. This would actually fit. Auror Weasley was one of these authorities, after all, and his wife had mentioned that it had been part of his training.

The text went on explaining how this spell was created (Trial and error. Lots and lots of horrible error described in great detail. Scorpius shuddered.) and how, in 1329, it officially replaced a spell that had the word "Castratus" in it which made Scorpius immensely glad that he was born after 1329.

"This change was made when the magical constitution was amended, anchoring every person's fundamental and unalienable right to the potential realisation of their sexual satisfaction in England's Basic Wizarding Law (BaWL). Said law was originally mainly established to make both genital mutilation and mechanical means of sexual denial, such as chastity belts and paroxysm-inhibiting penile devices that had come into fashion around the 11th century (for details, see chapter 16, subchapter 4), illegal. However, it also criminalised the previous custom of punishing sexual offenders through castration."

Scorpius had never heard of any of this and suddenly got somewhat pissed off at Professor Binns for not teaching _this_. It was so much more interesting than the various quarrels of other species. Then again, if his penis were working properly, he probably would have found this topic rather too crass and faux-sensational for subject material. It was only through this unfortunate circumstance that this concerned him. He sighed a sigh that would have made his father proud and read on.

In the following part, the political debate about obligatory castration was laid out at length, referencing several other laws and regulations that were also affected and had to be amended in a chain reaction of reforms. Scorpius skipped most of that.

The next part finally expounded the nature and functionality of Tactus Torporis. Gnawing on the tip of his thumb, Scorpius read that this spell brought "energy lines and nerve endings within the cursed person's body into conflict", thus making it impossible for this person to "bring about sexual delight through digital or other intentional bodily stimulation, and, indeed, betimes causing physical and psychological discomfort that is anathema to carnal pleasure", which was pretty much on point if somewhat understating exactly how awful it felt. At the same time, this nifty spell "never obstructed blood vessels, erectile tissue and so forth, thus never doing permanent damage to the neural system".

Scorpius darkly mumbled "Golly, what a relief" to himself, then read the last bit.

"Hence, the lawfully required potential realisation of sexual satisfaction remains, at least theoretically, intact. The entirely reversible nature of the spell furthermore offers a much greater potential for full restitution in case of false accusations than its predecessors," the entry closed rather smugly.

A footnote went into how many sexual crimes had been punished, and possibly prevented, with this curse. Interestingly, another footnote remarked that at least 43 cases of commitment to mental hospitals had been linked to this very spell. An absolute causal relationship had never been proven, which was why the spell was still in use today ("today" being 1977, the year of publication of the book, but Scorpius didn't doubt that nothing had changed in the four decades since then).

He set out to find more on Tactus Torporis, namely, whether there was a counter-spell at all, or how exactly the lifting of this curse would go about, or if it was even possible to put it on a time limit, or if Rose's parents might have deceived him and his parents in pre-crime revenge, which was likely if Mrs Granger and Mr Weasley thought of him as a sexual criminal. Sadly, none of the other tomes he had already pulled from the shelf helped. Two of them didn't even mention it, the other two only repeated what he already knew without adding anything. So he went hunting for others.

He had just made a find and was reading the new discovery leaning against the shelf – he gnawed his lip when he learnt that the only person who could lift the curse was the original caster, which had brought about several lawsuits in the past because in the 14th to 17th century ministerial enforcers tended to die abrupt, violent and premature deaths that left their victims in a right pickle, especially if they had been wrongfully accused and cursed as a mere precautionary measure – when a voice rang out next to him.

"So studious. It's as if you're living here."

Sophie Cattermole was wearing a sweet perfume and a little rouge on her plump cheeks. Those were the first two things Scorpius noticed.

"Um. Not really," Scorpius replied, suddenly very conscious about the glamour on the binding of the book he was currently holding, and that it was very temporary, and that it covered up 'Crimes, Spells, Magic: The history of Sex and Erotics in English Wizarding Law'. Written by a woman named Fanny Dickson because of course it bloody would be.

"What are you reading?" She leaned in to read from the side.

"Oh, nothing interesting," he said and closed the book rather forcefully.

His dad's book cover glamour used the material it was given, and it could only bend the truth so much. Thus, the cover said '101 easy Spells to find Love: Friends, Flirting, Friction' by a Chinese dude called Wang Long.

"Just, uh, skimming it, actually," he said, thinking '_Breathe. Just breathe'_. "It's useless drivel, really." He slipped it back into the gap he had taken it from.

"Really? You seemed pretty absorbed to me," Sophie tilted her head and smiled. "And it's not that useless to learn a little about... you know, love and such." Her curved eyebrow said 'After all, _I_ was reading that Kama-Sutra book last time even though I totally pretended not to.'

"I did? I wasn't, really. Um. How long have you been watching?"

"A short while," she replied enigmatically. "Say, you didn't happen to... have someone specific in mind while reading, did you?"

"Uh-no." He shook his head. _Why am I so nervous? _Something about this situation made him very uncomfortable.

"Not Rose Weasley, then?" Sophie asked sweetly.

The directness surprised him so much that it took Scorpius a long moment before he could answer.

"Nope," he said. "Definitely not her." In a hurry, he added, "No one in general, really. As I said, I was just skimming. It wasn't the book I was searching for."

"Then what _are_ you searching for, Scorpius Malfoy?" Sophie asked. In time with the emphasized 'are', she stepped so close to him that her bosom touched his upper arm.

His entire body froze mid-movement and got busy breaking sweat out of every available pore. His middle region gave an interested twitch.

Meanwhile, his head gave a high-pitched squeal, followed by a string of 'Oh Merlin, what the hell is going on here? I'm not ready for this! Retreat! Retreat! _Retreat_!'

He suddenly remembered something about fate and fatherhood and destiny being disinclined to change her course and Mrs Granger mentioning 'poor other girls'; and then he recalled his mum giving him a short lecture on how girls liked it when the boy was a little shy and hard to get, how they liked a "capital C Challenge" (This had been to the occasion of his first crush; Odile had been at Hogwarts for an exchange from Beauxbatons. They had written letters for three whole weeks. Her English had been as awful as his French); and then Albus Potter said "Must be the irresistible Malfoy charm"... and all of this gathered up into a katamari of unbelievably inconvenient timing.

Somewhere, Destiny herself was having a giggle.

There was a predatory glint in Sophie Cattermole's eyes that, at any other opportunity, he would have loved to see, but right now, it – and the pillowy touch of boobs against his arm – only made him laugh nervously and recoil.

"Hey, um, Sophie. I'm sorry, but I really have to go. I just remembered that I have some, uh... stuff to do." He extracted himself, snatched up his book bag from the floor and took the long way around her toward the exit. "See you around, I guess!"

She followed him with piercing eyes and one of her tiny smiles.

He positively fled the library, hoping against hope that he didn't look like the gazelle fleeing the lioness on the Discovery Channel.

Unfortunately, in the fleeing gazelle clip on Discovery Channel, another lioness was hiding in the tall grass, lying in wait for the prey to be chased toward her and leaping up quite gracefully, catching the fleeing beast by the throat mid-jump and ripping out its larynx in a beautiful cartwheel of death.

Accordingly, he actually barrelled into Kate Macmillan in the corridor just outside the library. She yelped and staggered backwards. Her books, which she had apparently meant to bring back to Madam Pince just before closing time, landed smack down on or went skittering across the floor.

"Shit! Sorry!" He reeled for a bit, then caught himself. "Are you okay?"

"It's... it's okay. It's all right. You startled me!" Kate pressed a hand to her chest as if to still her heart. Her voice, already a soprano normally, was so squeaky that she sounded as if she had inhaled a balloon full of helium.

On this occasion, Scorpius noticed that, although she was really petite, Kate Macmillan did have breasts.

_Bloody hell. _The katamari rolled on, gathering steam.

Scorpius kept apologising as he bent down to collect the scattered books, very intent to not look at Kate bloody Macmillans breasts and get away from everyone and everything quickly and especially get away from everyone with a double X chromosome... and breasts.

He handed the books to her. When she took them back, her fingers touched the backs of his hands.

Another jolt went through his body, the warmth pooling particularly in the middle again.

"Thank you, Scorpius," she said. It was as if she were singing it. She still hadn't taken the books properly. Rather, her hands cupped his, palms pressing warmly, tenderly against the backs of his hands and his knuckles. "How can I repay?"

Scorpius stammered something about 'It was my fault to begin with' and 'Don't mention it', before saying, much more articulately, "If you wanted to return these to Madam Pince, you might want to hurry."

The mention of the irritable librarian seemed to startle Kate out of her – trance or whatever it was, long enough for Scorpius to finally deposit the books in her hands and quickly move along.

In six years of attending Hogwarts, he had never made the way from the library to the Slytherin dungeons in under ten minutes. That day, it was four minutes fifty seven seconds. Also, he had never thought of the boys' dorm – protected by charms against female entry (rumour had it that Slytherin was the only house where such charms were in place, the other three houses only had the girl's dorms warded against boys) – as a sanctuary before, but today he almost cried with relief when he fell into bed, burying himself underneath his blanket.

Shrew and Albus looked at him, then at each other, and shrugged.

/

_~32 to 24 days left~_

Even though it was on his list of films he needed to see sometime, Scorpius had never seen Groundhog Day. If he had, he would have seen glaring parallels between it and his own life.

Every morning began with vivid dreams. Moving shapes, sometimes abstract, sometimes very concrete. Pleasant, _very_ pleasant thoughts.

Followed by the natural bodily reaction.

Followed by a natural response.

Followed by a groan of distress when the natural response made skin contact with the bodily reaction.

Followed by a shower. Cold, just for good measure.

Followed by a day full of girls. Big girls, thin girls, small girls, tall girls, brunettes, blondes, gingers, brown-eyed, doe-eyed, baby blue-eyed, green-eyed, most of them pale, few of them ebony, some of them cappuccino-and-cream, some flawless, most dusted with freckles- and they all looked _so fine_.

And they all were _so_ _frightening_. He spent most of the day walking at increased pace, eyes to the floor so as to not make eye contact. Every time a girl spoke to him, he had to keep himself from hysterically blurting out 'I don't want to be your baby daddy!' and running off.

In Transfiguration class on Wednesday of the following week, he leaned toward Albus who was sitting to his left and whisper-mumbled out of the left corner of his mouth, so that Professor McGonagall wouldn't hear, "Hey, Al."

"Hm?" Al leaned towards him a little so their conversation wouldn't attract the headmistress' attention.

"Is it just me or is Briony sitting really close?" he whispered.

Albus frowned, then glowered, then leaned forward and dipped his head just a bit to look past him.

Briony Parkinson had settled herself down on his other side today for unspecified and inexplicable reasons, wedging herself between Shrew and him. Her Ravenclaw-BFF, Isabella Pritchard, had tried to snatch the spot immediately to his left, but Al had thwarted her plans – something that Al would later deny had happened because he hadn't paid any attention to the whole process and just plonked himself down in his usual spot.

Leaning back again, Al's glower got a shade darker, and he slowly shook his head in negation and disapproval.

Ever since Scorpius had mentioned his uncle and the spell (and then spectacularly failed to actually explain himself, or to dispel Albus' lingering worry), Scorpius' constant insinuations and growing hysterics annoyed him. Therefore, he tried to offset them with utter stoicism (which was perceived by Scorpius as stubborn denialism), blocking every one of Scorpius' attempts to start a conversation about this girl giving him the eye or that girl wearing much sexier clothes all of a sudden or those girls generally closing in on him like a group of Neanderthal hunters surrounding a mammoth. A motherless, helpless baby mammoth. Al just could not bear to encourage thoughts like that.

_Or maybe he's right and it really _is_ all in my head?_ Scorpius tried to breathe evenly.

_Am I just sex-starved? _Scorpius wondered whether such a thing as a sex-starved virgin even existed. Could one – logically speaking – be starved for something one had never had? You couldn't miss someone you never met, so, logically...?

"By the way," Al suddenly whispered, pulling him out of his deeply philosophical conundrum. "Rose really liked the boots."

Scorpius just smiled tightly and nodded in response.

Al hadn't talked about the birthday party four days before at all. Scorpius hadn't decided yet whether this was because of lingering awkwardness – by now entirely imagined by Al, for Scorpius was way too preoccupied with virtually all the other females of Hogwarts to even think about Rose Weasley any more – or because the idiot couldn't actually remember much of it. He had come back to the castle quite a lot later than normal, then slept until 2 p.m. the Sunday after and had looked rotten enough to give everyone who stood too closely to him a hangover out of sympathy, which strengthened Scorpius' resolve to never let Al near Firewhiskey again. Dude just couldn't hold his drink.

To be fair, he needn't have said anything at all. Scorpius had noticed the boots on Rose's feet the day before in Herbology class. (He had been working on the table next to hers and Michael Bowen's, a bit off and to the side, so he could see her in full view. He had looked, occasionally, but was, frankly, too distracted by Amanda and too occupied with trying to evade her. There was way too much casual/pseudo-accidental touching going on.) Apparently, the boots were so comfortable and their thick profile offered so much traction on the still frozen Hogwarts grounds that she hadn't wanted to wait until Quidditch season. Even if Quidditch season – or at least training – would start again next week, under the protective dome of a spell that would keep the pitch and the flying area warm(ish). Or maybe she was wearing them in? Hard to say, and not terribly relevant to Scorpius, if he was honest.

Thinking of Quidditch, he felt his fingertips itch and it made him fiddle with the corners of his parchment. Sports. Physical exertion. Just what he desperately needed to take his mind off... everything. He could hardly wait.

Briony clumsily dropped her quill and, instead of just asking Mariella – who was sitting right in front of them and under whose bench the quill had landed – crawled under the table to retrieve it. Crawling about, her backside was on rather prominent display, as Scorpius noticed just before he decided that the ceiling was very interesting to look at.

When she came back up and got seated again, she suddenly sat so close that her left thigh was touching his right one.

Scorpius froze as the contact zapped him and then scooted over three centimetres to the left to break the contact. And then three centimetres more, for good measure. Safety clearance.

"Another inch and you're sitting on my bloody lap, Malfoy," Albus grumble-whispered at him. "Give me some elbow room, will you?"

Right about now, Scorpius was fully prepared to spend the rest of the lesson sitting on Albus' lap, even if McGonagall would probably not find it very edifying and would deduct a shitload of points from Slytherin and/or hand out detentions - anything, as long as this would get him away from Briony Parkinson.

He did spend the rest of the lesson pressed up against Albus' right side, keeping a mantra of 'Only twenty four days, only twenty four days' in his head and desperately ignoring the nagging possibility that maybe the spell wouldn't wear off at all, and the additional thought that there really was no guarantee at all that this nightmare would end when (if!) the spell wore off because maybe destiny wasn't on a bloody schedule. _I'm going to have to move to some remote island where there are no females within a radius of five hundred kilometres..._

With both hands he held on to the hope that everything would be alright when he could masturbate again – and, really, that's a notion that keeps sixteen year old boys worldwide alive and sane on a daily basis.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	8. Chapter 8

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter (kind of...)

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (later on), original characters (recycled because BKstories and I like them a LOT)

/

_Thanks to BKstories for reviews that make me grin! I hope you got my replies.  
><em>

_Okay, folks. The moping commences. (FYI, in my stories, moping is like foreplay...) Stay strong, and, if at all possible, enjoy! ^-^ _

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><p><strong><em>~Chapter 8~<br>_**

_~20 days left~_

"Come on, Malfoy. You can't stay holed up in here all day," Albus groused, slinging a scarf – the one his cousin had made for him, Scorpius noted – around his neck.

"Can, too," Scorpius replied, a bit more waspish than needed.

He could already see and hear this conversation unfolding in his head. Albus insisting that he come with – after all, the weather was straight up delightful after days of dreary frost, and they were going to the Quidditch pitch to see Madam Hooch and Professor Flitwick put up the spell that would warm the air under an invisible dome, melt the icicles off the hoops within a day or two and thus make Quidditch training possible again by Tuesday, February 1st, the day after tomorrow. The Slytherin team was even scheduled for Tuesday evening. This trip was almost like a tradition. Lloyd Christopher, their current team captain, normally used this trip as a pre-training pre-briefing. Attendance was implicitly requested.

This time he, Scorpius, would refuse to go.

Albus would ask why even though he already knew the answer. Just that he couldn't accept it because of denialism and stuff.

Scorpius would grumble unintelligible stuff under his breath.

Albus would ask why again, a tad more annoyed than before.

Scorpius would tell him that Tiffany Collins and Gemma Reedy and Tami Patil would be there, and the girls from the other three house teams as well, and that he just didn't want to be in a situation where he was surrounded by them.

Albus would roll his eyes dramatically and groan and call him paranoid and delusional and tell him that he was quickly running out of patience with this... thing he had going on in his head that all the females of Hogwarts were horny for him and out to get him.

Scorpius would grumble again, bite his tongue and absolutely not tell him that this would – hopefully – only persist for twenty more days, and that he had never been hornier in his entire life, and that the mere sight of a girl's form – no matter whether it was from the front, the side or the back – was enough to give him acute pains in the middle region.

After a venturesome trip to the library yesterday evening (he had avoided all the usual routes to get there and back again, each trip had taken more than twenty minutes and had led him through corridors he wasn't sure he had ever seen before) he now knew that this pain was quite normal, as well as the certain stickiness in which he now often woke. His body had started to take matters into its own figurative hands and finished him while still in deep sleep. This was almost reassuring, biologically speaking, as it showed him that he was not... well, not defective, generally speaking... but it did nothing to take the edge of the psychological strain he felt throughout the day.

Eventually, Albus would get angry and leave before words would be said that could not be taken back.

Scorpius sighed. He wanted nothing more than to forestall this conversation, so he added, when he saw Albus opening his mouth, "I've still got stuff to do. Assignments. That DADA essay, especially. The test on Monday was pretty bad." Because the person he normally relied on in that type of situation had still been 1/3 hungover. "And I need to read up on the Vanishing Potions bit again. Smith mentioned that they would be in the exams and I can already tell that Mariella didn't get it and will rip my head clean off if I prove unable to explain it to her."

"Scorp, you've done all that yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before _that_," Albus said with an accusing tone, crossing his arms before his chest. "In fact, by now you've done enough writing assignments, and reading assignments, and _additional_ reading assignments to last you the rest of the year."

Scorpius pressed his lips together. True. Not that he had learned much, per se. But he had been sitting there looking into a book.

Albus huffed. "Damn it, Malfoy. What's going on with you?" When he didn't receive an answer, he said, "If you told me, I could help you." After a pause, he added, "Like, _really_ told me. Explained. So that I could understand it."

There were just some things Scorpius felt he needed, he _had to_ keep to himself. Especially seeing that he didn't know whether Albus, in the hope of actually helping him, might go to Rose afterwards or possibly directly write a letter to his aunt and uncle – and Scorpius imagined a chain reaction, how this knowledge would rapidly spread through the entire Weasley and Potter family (which it hadn't yet, apparently, fortunately, amazingly enough) until one day soon, Hugo Weasley would get up from his freshly acquired spot at the Gryffindor house table, point a finger at him over everyone's heads and start laughing like that Nelson on The Simpsons-

He shook his head vehemently. Albus took it as a 'no', huffed again and said, "Fine. Alright. I'll tell Lloyd you've got a stomach bug or something." Without another word or hesitation, he was out the door, leaving Scorpius alone in the dorm that had already been evacuated by all the other boys who were out enjoying their Sunday or the sun or both.

Rubbing his forehead in an annoyed gesture, Scorpius closed the DADA book on his lap with a heavy thud and leaned his head back against the mattress of his bed. He was sitting on the floor between shoes, various bits of previously worn clothes, Quidditch magazines and parchments with scribbles from classes on them, rather enjoying the messiness of it which his mother would have-

His mother! All at once he remembered the letter he had received an hour ago at breakfast. He had shoved it into his cloak pocket and almost forgotten about it because he had been busy dodging Constance and Briony.

He fished the envelope out of his pocket, ripped it open, breaking the wax seal which showed an elegant hawk in flight, and pulled out the letter.

_My dear Scorpius,_ it read in his mother's flowing script,  
><em>How are you faring these days? Your father and I<br>haven't had word from you in two weeks, and even  
>your letter from the 16<em>_th__ was rather terse. By the  
>by, your father and I are fine, thank you for asking.<em>

He pursed his lips and mumbled, "Sorry, mum." He had been quite self-absorbed.

_He has been on the continent on Thursday and re-  
>turned to me in a good mood, full of stories about<br>the blue skies and sunlight and all those luxuries  
>the people on the continent don't have to do with-<br>out for five months every year. Thus I believe our  
>next holidays will likely be spent in Italy rather than<br>Sweden._

_Speaking of Italy, the boots I sent you two weeks  
>ago were signed by that Italian player, were they<br>not? I hope you're not an avid fan of hers. I hear  
>she plans on retiring from the sport soon.<em>

Scorpius hadn't heard of this although he knew that Antonia Guarda had been planning on marrying her girlfriend for quite some time, and he knew that Italian role allocation would probably call for one of them to stay home to cook, clean and watch future kids once the knot was tied. Given that said girlfriend was a high-ranking politician in the Italian Wizarding government, prone to walking around in sensible flats and power suits, it was likely that Antonia would pull the shorter straw there. She was already 46 years old anyway, so maybe the time was right, too.

_I also hope_, his mother now got to the actual point of the letter,  
><em>that Rose liked them, and that she appreciates<br>them and what they stand for... even though she  
>apparently does not appreciate you.<em>

Scorpius grimaced and mouthed an 'ouch'. When she phrased it like that, it was still a bit cruel. Accurate, but cruel.

_Before you ask, Hermione Granger has been so  
>kind to let us know that her daughter has put an<br>end to your friendship. I am sorry, Scorpius, I  
>truly am. (And so is your father, even though he<br>doesn't know how to articulate it over his inappro-  
>priately great relief. I swear, one of these days I'll<br>drag him to therapy so he'll get over his issues with  
>those people.) From the birthday present to the<br>way you worried about her when her parents paid  
>their visit I could tell that she meant and probably<br>still means a lot to you._

Scorpius scratched his neck and skimmed ahead to see whether the rest of this letter would be what he feared it would, then sighed when he found his fears pretty much confirmed.

_I hope you remember what I told you that day  
>during packing, because it is still true now. I wish<br>nothing more than for you to find a companion  
>who will not leave you out in the cold just because<br>the situation is a little complicated. _

Understatement.

_As such, I think you could almost be glad that things  
>happened like they did because, to me, it certainly<br>shows Rose Weasley's true colours. She is a friend  
>for fair weather at best and not, in my opinion, de-<br>serving of your fondness.  
>At worst, she's just doing it because she likes being adored by you, and because that adoration coincides with your tutoring her in Potions for zero return service, <em>Scorpius added mentally, figuring that Rose's parents hadn't briefed his parents on the details of their daughter's "dumping" him. Maybe they didn't even know, maybe Rose hadn't told them. In any case, his mother's words rather sounded like she was tentatively trying to cover all possible heartbreak-bases.

_I dearly hope that all that's been happening over  
>the past few weeks will not make you bitter or frus-<br>trate you to the point of losing faith in the very idea  
>of love. I know you are impatient at heart, and that<br>circumstances_

Charming euphemism.

_are difficult_

And yet another understatement.

_and that the pressure is probably very high._

She was referring to Shrew, no doubt. The Shrewsburys and his parents were friends, and his mum invited Angela Shrewsbury, Bob's mum, over for tea on a weekly basis so they could exchange gossip and cooking recipes or something.

Mrs Shrewsbury had kept her informed on the relationship status of Bob, which had switched from 'eternally single' to 'in the kind of relationship that will last forever' when he had finally dared to ask Talia Creevey out to the Yule Ball half a year ago, which had made him the first boy in their dorm to have and maintain a relationship that was deserving of the title.

Scorpius would be lying if he said that he hadn't been, or wasn't, jealous, and that he had often felt a pang of loneliness when he had seen them together. Not to mention that Talia, a seventh year Hufflepuff girl, was really quite cute.

And once again he wondered whether mothers were just genetically predisposed to know and comprehend these things about their children – better than they themselves did, no less – or whether his mum was just special and possibly freaky in the way she understood him. He had never mentioned his take on Shrew and Talia to her, or what it had done to the dynamic in the dorm, and still she just _knew_.

_In any case, I just sincerely wish for you to stay  
>hopeful and positive, and – possibly, if it's not too<br>unearthly – consider talking (or writing) to me  
>about... everything, if you so wish. Knowing you,<br>you probably haven't told anyone else about this,  
>not even your best friend.<em>

'Not for lack of trying on his part,' Scorpius thought, suddenly ashamed of his basically telling Albus to get lost.

_Remember that you are not alone in this, that  
>you don't have to be. Remember that I am here<br>for you._

_With love (and sincerely not  
>trying to embarrass you,)<br>Your mother_

He reread the letter once more and, with a look to his bedside clock, decided to reply right away. It was only just ten a.m. and he wouldn't go anywhere else today, so he might as well. And anyway, this letter deserved a hasty reply.

He began with broad inquiry about her health and his father's actual dealings in Italy, of all places, then continued some general info, about the weather and Quidditch practice beginning again in two days, and on how things were going in class, alluding to but not directly telling her about his failure in the DADA test last Monday (including a tacit vow to do better next time, of course). Only in the last few paragraphs did he mention Rose, but then quickly assured his mum that, although the whole thing was pretty unfortunate, he certainly was far from bitter or frustrated with love because of her.

He was bitter and frustrated with absolutely _everything_ because of that damned spell, a.k.a. "the difficult circumstances", but he didn't write her that. She probably knew anyway. He also did not mention the details of Rose's Acquaintance-speech, or that it had all been a sham from the start. He didn't want her to worry any more than she already did, and he didn't want her to think that he was a lousy judge of character. (Although she probably also already knew that.)

He closed the letter, somewhat cheesily, _With hope (I swear)_, and stuffed it into an envelope which he then placed next to his alarm clock so he would take it with him to the Great Hall tomorrow morning.

When he was done with that, he tried to focus on the DADA book again, but failed. For some reason that surely had to do with his mother's words in her letter, his eyes kept glancing over at Shrew's bed, more specifically, at the framed photo on his night stand that showed Shrew and Talia slow dancing on the Yule Ball.

In all the confusion about his libido, actual feelings – the likes of which he had had, not too long ago, for one Rose Weasley – had got lost. He suddenly registered how none of the girls he found both hot and frightening had ever caught his eye before all of this, and how none of them really affected more than just the numb spot in his loins.

And then, for the first time, it occurred to him that this must be true the other way around as well. It was very likely that Parkinson and Bagman, Cattermole and Macmillan, Goldstein and Patil, that none of them had ever wasted a single thought on him that went above "acquaintance", "study partner" and "fellow housemate" - until the moment he stepped into their sight and they turned into cats in heat. They all were probably confused about themselves and their behaviour and embarrassed every time he was out of range again.

That realization made him feel lost as well, especially in the area inside his ribcage, and then he suddenly felt sleazy and dirty.

"Goddamn it, mum," he murmured to himself and sighed, pulling his legs up and burying his face in his knees. As if circumstances hadn't been difficult enough yet.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	9. Chapter 9

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (soon), original characters (recycled because that's how I roll. Get it? Cycle...? Forget it.)

/

_Thanks to MoRaine25 for following, and to my Weird Guest for the review! (Better late than never ;] Hope your exams went/will go alright! Also: I'm not sure Al consciously knows that yet, so... shhh ^^)_

_Alright, guys, gals. Scorpius Malfoy's trek of tribulation continues... _

* * *

><p><strong>~<em>Chapter 9~<br>_**

_~18 days left~_

When he was a toddler, Scorpius' favourite toy had been a toy broom his dad had given him for Christmas. It was built like an actual Comet 180, just tiny, and went about as fast as an exhausted mum was willing to walk to keep up with it, and about as high as she was comfortable seeing her offspring hover in the air, i.e. not very fast, and not much higher than ankle height. But four to six year old Scorpius had thought this piece of bristly wood was the awesomest thing on planet Earth right after his mum's chocolate chip cookies and building pillow forts with dad.

Thus, Scorpius had continuously loved flying on brooms as long as he could remember. All his life, brooms had been there, and they had been awesome. He remembered almost passing out for joy when his parents got him his first real-size broom when he was seven, a Nimbus 1700 he had since mounted on his wall in his room in the Manor. Brooms and flying and Quidditch had always been three of his favourite things.

This era had now come to an end. Or, at the very least it had hit a serious bump in the road.

Dressing up in the training gear had been almost ceremonial. The leathers, though well-kept and oiled over the winter months, were a little stiff and creaky when they put them on. They felt a little too small already again. He made a mental note to ask his dad for new kneeguards and maybe even gloves.

Carrying the brooms out onto the pitch had been a silent affair, with excitement seething beneath the silence.

Lloyd's speech had been short and to the point.

Everything was splendid.

Right up until the point when they mounted and took off.

When the wood of his broomstick pressed against his crotch, it felt as if someone had injected a fifteen centimetre tranquillizer dart right into his perineum.

Scorpius was too shocked to even yelp, all the air rushed out of his mouth in a gasp.

Momentarily losing control of his broom, he wobbled to the right and missed ascending Tami Patil by a hair's breadth. He just barely managed to keep himself from faceplanting into the green right away.

As gracefully as he could manage with the lower half of his body thus incapacitated, he pressed the soles of his feet into the metal crossbars, a position that was normally only used for purchase while diving, and tensed his back to lift off his crotch from the broomstick. Then he leaned backwards to pull the broom handle upwards and coax his broom to join the others up in the air.

Turned out flying wasn't as fun when all his attention was necessarily fixated on trying to stay as upright in the hip as possible to avoid crotch-to-stick contact. He was much slower than everyone else due to wind resistance, his moves and manoeuvres were clumsy. Plus, he was tense. Barely ten minutes into the training, his thighs were screaming and trembling with effort.

"Dammit, Malfoy! What do you think you're doing?" Lloyd was also screaming to make himself heard over the wind. "You're flying as if you're trying to get away from your bloody broomstick!" He was clearly still pissed that he hadn't showed up to 'The Dome' the day before yesterday, or so Scorpius thought.

"Just trying something new!" he yelled back through mostly clenched teeth.

The captain seemed unconvinced, but didn't comment further.

Albus, on the other hand, wasn't so easily deterred.

"You need to get up to my speed, Scorp! Get your feet off those stirrups and put your bony arse down or you'll never make it!" he yelled, somewhat less loudly because he was closer, hanging in the air two brooms' lengths away from him while the chasers had the field to go through standard combinations without the Quaffle.

"I know," he replied with an eye roll. "You know I've been doing this for more than a bloody decade?"

"Could've fooled me," Al said in normal volume, but Scorpius heard him still.

"I'm just trying out something new," he lied again, somewhat heatedly. "I've read in a magazine that they're doing this in Quodpot."

"Yeah, maybe. But we're not in America, and we're not playing Quodpot, and that seriously doesn't look comfortable. Or effective in any way. How about you save the random stuff for random hours and don't do them during official training?"

Having said that, he pulled his broom handle to the side and dove toward the stands at breakneck speed, a move that Scorpius would have been able to match every day of the week – except that now he couldn't. So he stayed where he was, hovering near the upper edge of the air dome looking down at the others and cursing loudly, in every language in which he knew how to curse. (English, French, German, Elvish, Gibberish.)

He could only guess why exactly this thrice-damned spell was acting like this now. Somehow, it must have evaluated the pressure of the broom handle as an attempt at 'intentional bodily stimulation'. Until now, Scorpius had never even (_consciously?_) thought of the possibility of pleasuring oneself with a broom. Was that even feasible for guys? For girls, perhaps...? _... Oh God you can't think about stuff like that now?! What the hell!_ He shook his head like a wet dog.

In any case, this was nothing short of a disaster. Three more practice sessions were scheduled until next week's Friday, and the first Slytherin game of the season, against Gryffindor, would be the day after that, on Saturday next week. There was simply no way for him to properly play like this.

He didn't have much time to ponder, though. Al came up next to him and tossed him his bat, which he caught with luck and because Al was a good thrower, and then the Bludgers were let loose and actual training was on.

With the possible exception of that one game in fourth year – against Gryffindor, in a raging thunderstorm that had incapacitated the Slytherin seeker and two chasers, leaving Slytherin behind by three hundred seventy points after five excruciating hours of playing – Scorpius couldn't remember when he had ever wanted for Quidditch to stop this desperately. He wanted to get his feet on the ground, get out of these clothes, put his broom away, have a long shower and ten solid hours of sleep. He missed one third of his shots because he didn't have the balance or wasn't where he was supposed to be, and the ones he did get flew everywhere except where he wanted them to.

It was painful, physically and psychologically, and exhausting. He almost cried with relief when Lloyd gave the signal to touch ground again.

"What in the bloody hell were you doing there, eh?" their captain spat at Scorpius who was too tired to bother replying except with shrugs. "You looked ridiculous and you hit like my blind grandma, dammit."

Scorpius expected him to grab him by the collar like the mob boss in a gangster movie and shake him or something, but Lloyd somehow refrained from it. He did have the dangerous whisper plus evil glare thing down, though. "If you're not taking this seriously, I'm going to find us a new beater. Do you understand me? I am not going to lose against the Gryffies just because you screwed up the training."

There was nothing he could say so he nodded, then turned and walked toward the locker rooms while Lloyd moved on to the others. Albus' look was almost palpable on his back.

From the shower conversation between the other six people of the team, facilitated by the air vent that enabled the girls to speak with the boys and vice versa while showering, Scorpius managed to piece together the briefing he had missed through his early departure. Apparently, Brice needed to upgrade to a better broom to fit in to the chaser constellation since Reedy had got a better broom for Christmas, Tami Patil needed some extra hours to get back into her keeper groove – she blamed her previously broken forefinger – and Lloyd wanted all of them to hit a little harder since he mysteriously knew that James Sirius Potter (Gryffindor captain, chaser, leading scorer of all house teams by 7%) and Rose Weasley (Gryffindor keeper, best keeper of all house teams by 18%) had been training throughout the winter at "the Potter Mansion". (Albus snorted at that but said nothing.) As if the Slytherin-Gryffindor enmity alone wasn't enough to ensure that it would be the hardest game of the year. It always was. It was tradition. People would be stretchered off the pitch bleeding or it hadn't happened.

Scorpius didn't want to face any of his teammates, but especially not Albus or Lloyd, so he hurried with the showering and when the others finished their own showers, he grabbed his clothes, found himself a nice restroom cubicle and waited until all the voices had gone. As he listened for the noises to die down and tried to get into his pants in the 1,5-square-metre bathroom stall (with the actual room to manoeuvre even smaller due to the toilet), he felt like an idiot.

After silence had come, he inched back into the dressing room.

He was just stuffing his training gear into his sports bag when a voice rang out behind him.

"We need to talk," Albus said. He had probably been standing by the door all the while.

"We do?" Scorpius asked, hearing the whiny tone in his voice but unable to do anything about it except for masking it. Therefore he asked sarcastically, "Are you breaking up with me?" and made a big, dramatic pouty face. This day had been too awful already.

Albus looked at him evenly for a moment, then sighed, apparently deciding to not even respond to the provocation.

"You've got a problem of some kind and it's getting in the way of... everything, really," he said quietly. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back against the door, thereby casually blocking Scorpius' path out of the room.

Scorpius stuffed his gear and sweaty clothes into his sports bag in a manner his mum would definitely find alarming. "Yeah, so," he said. "It's my problem. I'll sort it out." Murmuring, he added, "In eighteen days." Almost three more weeks. An eternity away.

"That's the point," Albus said, audibly trying hard to sound non-confrontational. Which he rarely did in the first place, but especially now. "It's not your problem alone any more. You've made it mine. Today more than ever." He gave a groan. "Seriously, you almost tipped off your broom there. Suddenly you can't hit a Bludger properly if your life depended on it. You keep this up and I'll end up beating with bloody McDonough for the rest of the year. Don't do this to me, man."

Lars McDonough had continuously come third in Slytherin Beater's try-outs for four years now. The kid was in fifth year, looked like seventh year plus one grade retention, was, genetically speaking, possibly 25% gorilla, and he was simply one of the meanest bastards in all of Hogwarts. Not surprising that he would only try out for the spot in which he would get to swing a thirty centimetre cudgel of solid hard wood around other people without immediately being punished for it.

Suddenly, Scorpius actually felt sorry for his friend, and with that came a tide of pure exhaustion. His shoulders sagged a little. "Sorry," he mumbled and meant it, even though he couldn't say it while looking him in the eye. "I'm... um."

"If you think you can't tell me, that's fine, I guess. Except that, you know, you _can_ tell me," Albus said into a stretching silence, apparently a little confused about where to go with the sentence. "I just... wished you'd let me help you. Lend a hand, if you need it, or something."

_Oh, I seriously, _seriously_ doubt that_, Scorpius thought, pressing his lips together trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the notion.

"And I wished you'd go back to normal. Like things were before the Christmas hols."

Scorpius huffed a sad little laugh out of his nose and said, "That makes two of us."

There was a silence, broken by the high shriek of the zip of Scorpius' bag when he pulled it shut.

_The thing is_, Scorpius started in his head as he shouldered the strap, _my_... _uh, penis- _He winced. _NO. Just NO.  
><em>

"So, uhm." Albus uttered, apparently not sure whether it was a prompt for himself or for Scorpius, and took a step further into the room and toward him.

_You know how we boys, uh, kinda need to, uh, do this thing every other day at least to not go crazy and maybe take up a chainsaw and start killing people? Yeah, I haven't been able to do that in twenty four days because your uncle went a bit overboard with birth control._

Albus hesitated palpably for another moment as if to give him another three seconds of extra time to start talking, then exhaled loudly when he didn't and said, "If I had known that you liked Rose _that_ much, I-..." He looked up at the ceiling as if divine help might drop down from there, an expression of actual distress on his face. Thus, he didn't see Scorpius glaring at him. "I don't even know what I would have done. I hoped I'd have been a better friend to you, and been honest from the start. I know that you had serious feelings for her. I'm sor-"

"Al, shut up!" That was the only thing that came to mind. That, and storming past him and out the door before Al could recover and follow up on it.

The rest of the day – two mercifully short hours, that was – he stayed away from him and every other Quidditch team member, also from every girl, and from everyone who might want to talk to him. Basically, he avoided everyone and didn't look anyone anyone in the eye for another two hours before getting into bed, curling up in a fetal position and falling asleep thinking '17 days left'.

/

_~17 days left~_

Slim. Not too tall. Slender, not at all voluptuous. Flexible. Strong. He liked that.

How she could move. Bend. Writhe. It drove him crazy.

Her fingers ran all over his body while her voice dripped into his ear.

"Scorpius," it said.

He let out a soft moan. It was so warm. Her hand on his shoulder.

"Scorpius."

So warm. Sweaty. Mhh.

"Scorp. Scorp, wake up."

He did, with a start. The disorientation hit him like a Bludger in the face.

Where had the girl gone? And the light? And the nice feelings and everything?

"You were dreaming," someone informed him with a whisper. "Noisily." The someone turned out to be Albus who had half bent over him in his bed and was just stepping back.

Scorpius blinked as his brain restarted.

The girl was gone – she had never been real, except for the touch on his shoulder, but that had been Albus.

The feelings had been real, though.

Some of them still were.

Visibly, under his blanket.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)

_One round of serious pity for the millions of boys who are betrayed by their bodies every day. I don't know how you survive.  
><em>


	10. Chapter 10

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (soooon. Like, almost right now.), original characters (not right now, though)

/

_Thank you, DemonDragon8331, for favving and following this story! (Also, I noticed that you went and followed Calor Cupiditatis. That's odd, because Calor Cupiditatis is finished and done and story alerts are therefore of no use.) (But I like odd, so... thank you all the same for enjoying the story ^^) (Also, Calor has a part 2, called Ardor Animorum.)  
><em>

_Thanks again to the Weird Guest Reviewer for reviewing! (Funny, my dearest Beta, Nia, has also remarked on how cruelly I'm treating my protagonists. Taking Quidditch away from Scorp in that manner really was sort of harsh. Sorry about that. I'll... uhm. Make it up to him presently.)_

_Now, where were we? Ah, right. Scorpius had just... pitched up a tent..._

* * *

><p><strong>~<em>Chapter 10~<em>**

He gave a tiny croak and gathered his duvet in his middle to hide what Albus had certainly already seen anyway. Though the other boy was casting a wide shadow across him with his bedside lamp right behind his back, and the duvet was rumpled, making the whole thing a scraggly, dark black and grey landscape with various peaks and valleys in it, he couldn't have missed _that_.

Hurriedly, he scanned the rest of the room for other vigilant eyes, glancing from one bunk to the next so quickly that it made him dizzy. He thought he could see his dormmates moving as they tossed and turned in their respective beds.

Awake and watching.

"Easy, man. You're- Are you hyperventilating or something?" Albus came a little closer again. "Everything's fine. Calm down. This is- It's normal, don't-"

It was too late at night (or too early in the morning) and Scorpius was still overwhelmed by the sudden change of scenery and the unfiltered, unfettered feelings of shame that coursed through him like hot blood, so he didn't wait for Albus to finish the sentence, and he didn't calm down, because everything was absolutely _not_ fine. Indeed, it was the opposite of fine.

He whipped back the duvet – in the direction of Albus, to shield himself from his view, and as if to swat him away with the back of his hand – and hopped out of bed, grabbing his day robe that hung over the bedpost, bunching it up before his body, and sprinted toward the door as quickly as the littered floor and his sleeping socks allowed. Albus hissed his name after him, but he didn't stop.

The common room was empty, dark and cold, the fire long burnt down to ashes, but that was not enough for him. Some housemate could be up getting a midnight snack, or the Bloody Baron might show up any second, so Scorpius threw on the robe as he crossed it, feeling for the door that led outside.

The dungeon corridor would have been pitch dark of not for a single torch burning around the corner. Scorpius suddenly registered that his wand was still back in the room, and this realization quickly drained his desire to run far, far away. Thus he changed plans and instead ran toward the torchlight, around one more corner, and pushed open the door to the boy's bathroom near the staircase. The lights went on when he entered.

Had he had an ounce of patience, he might have noticed that the room itself was quite nice for a bathroom, with enchanted stained-glass windows that gave the impression of being aboveground, the tiles clean and sparkling, turquoise and green and blue and white, the brass water taps recently polished. But his mind was on a single track, so he went to the stall at the far end of the row, the one that closed on two sides with the wall, and locked himself in.

After the bolt had slid shut, the silence was damning. The blood rushing in his head and the pulsing of his heart seemed to reverberate in it.

Thirty more seconds, and the adrenaline finally ran out, giving way to clearer thoughts.

Thoughts like _What the hell am I doing here? _and_ Damn, it's cold._

He properly buttoned up the robe he had on and pulled it close so to cover the bare skin between the top of his socks and the bottom seams of his shorts, put down the toilet seat and sat on it gingerly, and finally put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

_I overreacted, didn't I? Went full psycho there for a moment?_ he asked himself, thankfully not deigning it with an answer. He pulled his hair.

"Damn it. _Damn it_," he whispered, but since the whole room was so very quiet, it sounded very loud.

Twenty seven days ago he would never have believed how much of his sanity and well-being hinged on his masturbation habits. Especially since he had always believed these habits to be probably somewhat excessive – three to four times a week, five when he was at home... That was a lot, wasn't it? The other boys in the dorm never seemed to be as preoccupied with it as he was. Not that he had ever asked them directly. Some things just were not talked about, especially not if the initiator of this talk was presumably a freak, possibly a pervert, and would be sleeping in that very dorm for another year and five months.

If cornered, he probably would have said that some moderation would be advisable, and that it might make him healthier and more balanced. But moderation and complete abstinence were two vastly different things.

_Seventeen days_, he thought, then said it out loud. In the cavernous bathroom, the number sounded even larger.

He leaned over and rested his head on the tiles of the wall. His skull was pounding. He was both tired and way too awake and hyper at the same time. Bits of the dream were still floating in his head, enticing him still while they also made his skin crawl, keeping him in a state that certainly made it impossible to return to the dorm. He might encounter someone. Albus might still be awake. The others might, too. He imagined them waiting by the door, lined up as if for running-the-gauntlet-

"Stop it," he grumbled to himself. "You're being overdramatic."

"If you're talking about yourself, I have to say that I concur," a voice rang out from Merlin knew where. The echo in the bathroom made it impossible to tell.

After being startled at first – he hadn't heard the door opening at all -, Scorpius slumped back where he sat. "Go back to sleep, Al," he said, not even really surprised that he had come after him _and_ actually found him. In this huge, big castle. Al tended to have a knack for that.

"If you come along," he replied. "'m not leaving you here."

The main door fell shut with a boom. Then, Al spoke an incantation and the bolt slid into the lock after a series of clicks and screeches. Another incantation, and the room was soundproof.

"What are you doing?" Scorpius asked, curious and confused.

"Two weeks ago, when you talked to me about Rose," - Scorpius rolled his eyes and already opened his mouth for an angry reaction along the lines of _This is really not about her_, "you used these spells, too, to ensure some privacy. And then you actually talked to me. I guess I'm hoping they'll do the trick again."

While he was explaining, his voice had been coming nearer. At the last words, the door of the stall next to the one Scorpius was hiding in squeaked open, then shut, and lastly the bolt also slid into place.

Silence, except for a soft rushing of wind through the pipes.

"Scor-"

"It's embarrassing." It had come out like a cough, involuntarily and loudly. "I... just don't want to talk about it." He tried not to feel bad about saying that, and failed. It seemed like an ungrateful thing to say to him at this point. "It'll be over in seventeen days. I think."

"You think," Al repeated, voice very neutral.

"I _hope_," Scorpius amended and slumped a bit further, enveloping his head with his arms and hands.

"The dreams, they are part of this, aren't they?" Al asked quietly when Scorpius didn't continue for a time. Scorpius cringed a little. Dreams, plural. So tonight hadn't been the first time that he'd given the whole dorm a show...? "And your sudden girl paranoia, and even the thing at Quidditch practice... it's all connected somehow, but I don't understand it."

Even though he couldn't see his face, and his voice was intentionally neutral and almost soothingly quiet as if he were talking to a spooked hippogriff, Scorpius could clearly decipher the underlying message: _It is something around half past three on a Wednesday morning, we are sitting in a freezing cold, double-locked boy's bathroom and I am talking to you through a goddamned toilet stall wall like I'm some caricature of a priest in a caricature of a confession booth – as you hopefully can fucking see, I am your friend, and I _deserve_ an explanation. Now._

He sighed, and with the sigh, words spilled out reluctantly. Slowly at first, like a trickle. They were mumbled and tiny, forming very short sentences as if he were dictating a telegram.

It was explained much faster than he thought it would, really. Like ripping off a plaster strip – over much quicker than presumed, and more painless than expected.

Then again, one always had to wait and see whether ripping off the strip would re-open the wound. He braced for the shame to deepen by several magnitudes.

"Merlin, Scorp." Albus said with a heavy sigh, then huffed a laugh through his nose. "You could have told me this much sooner. I'd have channelled my inner McDonough, taken up my bat and fought the hordes of girls off with it."

The mental image actually raised a small smile. Scorpius had always thought that he would be the one fighting off the girls with a stick for Albus eventually. After all, he wasn't unhandsome, and he was pretty popular for reasons of being a decent human being _and_ a Potter.

"Man, twenty seven days," Al exhaled. "That's a long, _long_ time to go without wanking." He pondered for a second, then mumbled, "I don't think I've gone so much as forty-eight hours without ever since I discovered that particular feature."

"What?" Scorpius sat up straighter, intrigued and also very keen on grasping for anything that diverted the attention on his personal plight. "Forty eight hours?" This information cast some serious doubts on his perversion theory. Like maybe he wasn't the outlier he thought he was? Then again, perhaps Al was just saying I to make him feel better? _When the hell would Al have time for it that often? I've never noticed- _Actually, he'd never noticed anything _at all_, let alone every two days. He frowned to himself. Could his friend possibly be _that_ discreet?

"Yep." That was all he had to say to that.

There was a dull thump that told Scorpius that Al had leaned back against the stall wall.

Silence.

"Well, what are you going to do about practice and the Gryffindor match? That's all going to happen within seventeen days..."

"I don't know," Scorpius said. "Brew a potion, fake an illness?"

"Wear a jockstrap?" Al suggested.

Scorpius shrugged. "That might actually work." Would be unbelievably uncomfortable, though. Then again, it could hardly be worse than without.

Silence.

"And you could get yourself some Dreamless Sleep from Madam Pomfrey. For the nights before exams, at least."

"Yeah, I doubt she'd just hand that stuff over to me." Dreamless Sleep was expensive and addictive, or so they had learned in Potions class.

"Have you looked in a mirror recently?" Al huffed. "She'd give you a family size package, no questions asked."

"Oh." He bit his lip. "That bad?"

"If you look properly," he amended. "Lawless has noticed, I'd bet, but you know her. She wouldn't call you out on it if you started to go full zombie because that would require her to give a damn. The others probably haven't noticed, really."

"That's comforting," Scorpius murmured. The last thing he needed was nosey Shrew and nosier Bagman doing an intervention or something.

Silence again. A little longer this time.

"So, uh. Are you... Are you still-" Albus searched for an apt word but didn't find one.

"It's, uh, pretty much constant, at this point. A constant state." No sense in elaborating sexual frustration and the feeling of blue balls to someone who, allegedly, had never experienced it in his life. "For seventeen more days," he added, hoping to take the edge off the previous statement, and failing, instead making it a bit worse again.

For a long minute, no one said a word.

Then suddenly, Scorpius heard the shuffle of feet – shoes, to be exact, because Albus had not been so stupid as to run off into the cold Hogwarts dungeon in the middle of the night wearing socks like only an idiot would – and the click and slide of the door bolt of the stall next to his, followed by the squeaky whine of the door as it swung open.

"I can't... Scorp, I can't just stand by and watch you any longer," Al told him, his voice travelling from the stall back into the main room.

"That's alright," Scorpius said quickly, and only then the implication actually sank in. _What did you expect?_ a loud voice in his head asked. _You know full well that he can't really help you anyway._

And yet, being abandoned in this manner – with an announcement – stung like stupid. His breath hitched. "Go back to bed," he added, trying keep the unreasonable disappointment out of the words. "I'll catch-"

"No," Albus said loudly. "No, I-" He sighed in exasperation. "Scorpius, open the door."

Scorpius looked up as if he could see his friend through the stall walls. He could only see the tips of his shoes, though. He was standing right in front of his stall. "What?"

"I said, open the door."

An uncomfortable tingle started at the base of his spine. It made him get up from his spot on the toilet and want to back up, but he couldn't. "Why? Al, what-"

"Ask me, damn it." Albus was speaking very quickly now. "Open the door, ask me for help, you stubborn, prideful git. Open it, or I'll damn well charm it open."

"Albus-"

"Now!"

There were very few instances that Scorpius could remember in which Albus Severus Potter had ever barked orders. With his dad being Head Auror and Head of the Department of Law Enforcement, barking orders all day for money and out of vocation, his mum being captain of the Holyhead Harpies, barking orders for sport, and his elder brother being Hogwarts prefect, barking orders for fun, Scorpius had always assumed that Al tried to counterbalance all the bossiness running in his family by refraining from ordering people around or even raising his voice. Or maybe the bossy gene had simply skipped him. Scorpius just knew that Al wasn't the type to hector someone around.

But _that_ had been an order. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his scalp prickle.

He hesitated for another second, contemplated contradicting, remembered Albus telling him about his constant tendency to do the opposite of what he was told. By any right, he should feel the irresistible urge to never unlock that door again and quite possibly starve in this stupid stall.

Before his brain was all done, though, he had reached out with somewhat trembling fingers and flipped the lock switch. His heart started pounding crazily as if the switch had zapped him like an electric fence. _What the hell did I just do?_ he asked himself and received no answer except for some unintelligible stammering inside his head.

Albus slid into the stall which instantly seemed very crowded and small (even though it really wasn't. By Hogwarts standards, this stall was huge. And also, it seemed airless, which was stupid because it was open on either end and the room was also huge) and closed the door behind him again, even locking up once more.

Scorpius looked his friend in the face. There were odd red spots on the top of his cheekbones, standing out against the tired paleness, and his eyes seemed very bright. They didn't meet his.

"Turn," Albus said almost meekly, focussing his gaze on a spot somewhere over his shoulder. "Toward the wall."

Scorpius opened his mouth.

"Do it."

There it was again. Scorpius drew in a sharp breath and turned to his right. He faced the wall, then put his hands up against it as if to brace himself although he didn't know for what. The tiles were cold and a little slippery under his sweaty palms. He looked straight at them and didn't dare to move his head.

For a while, nothing much happened. Albus moved behind him.

"What are you-" he finally managed to cough up, but he didn't get any further.

Albus had stepped closer, right behind him, and his right hand had suddenly slid down across his hip, between two buttons of his robe and into his pants.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)

_Oh myyy.  
><em>


	11. Chapter 11

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, kinda-sorta non-consensual situations (Now. For real.), original characters

/

_Hey guys and gals! So glad that you're reading this again. Sorry for being late today._

_Thanks to 'I'll die for you any night' for giving me a little fright on account of a well-chosen username (It said "I'll die for you any night now" in the subject of my notification mail and that reads like an eerily nonchalant sort of promise...) and following this story! (P.S.: Please don't die.) Same to maxou! Y'all are my favourite sort of stalkers :)  
><em>

_And thanks to my Weird Guest reviewer for your enthusiasm, and to Gahhh (lol) for confirming that I'm still quite good with cliffhangers (P.S.: Please don't die, either.). Also, DemonDragon8331, thanks for favving Ardor!  
><em>

_It's getting naughty. Everyone, make sure that the cat on your lap isn't reading along. Unless the cat is of age and into that sort of thing, then it's fine._

* * *

><p><em><strong>~Chapter 11~<strong>_

/

It didn't even occur to him to flinch.

He thought _Oh_, and _Your hand is so warm_.

And he thought _Yesterday I thought about this. But it was just a joke. I meant it as a joke._

He felt Albus' hip slightly pushing against his right buttock when he came closer.

He felt Albus' warm, warm hand as it grasped him surely, firmly, and started moving.

_Oh_, he thought again, and _Fuck_.

Somehow he knew that he couldn't move a muscle, or the spell would kick in and everything would be ruined.

He wanted to tell him to go a little slower, but he couldn't because then he might stop altogether and he absolutely didn't want that, and because he could hardly even remember how to breathe. His mouth was open but he couldn't recall how the sucking-in-air thing was done.

"I'm not, uh, hurting you, am I?" Albus suddenly asked. He barely needed to whisper. "You're, uh, you're really-" Stiff. "Uh, rigid. I mean, your whole body. Like, in pain." And then he stopped, let go and pulled his hand away.

That's when Scorpius _actually_ felt pain, or a need so sharp that it was indistinguishable from pain. He gasped and sputtered, "No, no. Please, I'm- don't, uh." _Don't stop._ "You're- It's not hurting me." _Understatement. _"Keep- keep going." _Please._

Albus breathed out slowly, then resumed his previous activity, a little slower now as if he wasn't quite convinced.

Scorpius had never been lost in a desert, lost and so thirsty that his tongue turned to a dry piece of leather that glued itself to his gums and the roof of his mouth. But he imagined the feeling of suddenly being rescued from that desert, standing in the shade of a palm tree and then being handed a tall glass of iced water must feel quite akin to _this_.

The relief was indescribable.

It was good. It was beyond good.

It was, in fact, about a thousand times better than he ever had made himself feel (even though he had always been quite satisfied with his own capabilities).

It was also churning the marrow in his bones with shame, but it still felt so good that his knees were going weak and his thighs were all shaky and seemed to become beaded with sweat under the coat. He braced himself harder against the wall and pushed his feet into the cold ground as if wedging himself in.

"Is, uh. Is it okay?"

Scorpius exhaled a slow, controlled breath. It still trembled audibly. "Yes," he merely managed to say. _Underbloodystatement._

He had sped up just right. The pressure of his palm was just right, as was the curl of his fingers. An embarrassingly slick, fleshy sound, muffled by the layers of clothing, accompanied the the back-and-forth movement now. When Scorpius glanced down, he saw only Albus' arm vanishing between the folds of his cloak, and a bulge that moved about as if it were alive.

Strictly speaking, there was nothing naughty in this picture at all, yet it was the most obscene and startling and arousing thing Scorpius had ever seen. As his brain processed it, the coil tightened in his belly.

Not much longer. Not much longer at all. He screwed his eyes shut and focussed on the feeling.

It took hardly two minutes. His entire body seemed to constrict towards the middle, the muscles in his belly and in his thighs attempting to pull together as if they were trying to make a fist with one another. His stomach clenched, his belly button seemed to wander deeper and lower into his body as if pulled from inside, his lungs locked. Then, a spark as he teetered over the edge, and fire racing outwards rapidly, lighting every vein like a fuse.

And then, inevitably, the explosion.

"Oh, fuck," he breathed, stretching the 'u', and then proceeded to groan wordless noises for several long seconds even though he tried very hard to stay quiet.

He may or may not have passed out for a moment. When he came to, miraculously standing upright, with his hands, even sweatier and more slippery now, still against the wall, his forehead resting against the back of his right hand, and his pants wet and sticky against his skin, the relief continued to glow for several long, deep heartbeats. His blood thrummed with it. His breath seemed, for the first time in weeks, to go all the way down to the bottom of his lungs.

When the glow faded, all that was left was the embarrassment, and a deeply painful thought. _So that's the noise of a friendship ending._

He screwed his eyes shut again, but for different reasons this time. _What the hell just happened?_

Behind him, Albus shuffled around. Then, a rip and rustle of paper, then the toilet seat going up with a soft thunk, and the flush. Another rip, and a touch against his arm which, ironically, did make him flinch.

Al was handing him a balled-up length of toilet paper. "Clean up?" he asked.

Scorpius nodded and took the ball of paper with numb fingers. Stupidly, he almost didn't dare to reach down into his pants. Not in front of somebody else. He turned away just a little and felt his cheeks heat up. _Too late now_. _Way too late._

When the flushing was finished the second time, silence fell again.

"Let's go back to sleep now," Albus suggested, clearing his throat.

The s-word worked like a trigger. Suddenly, Scorpius was filled with exhaustion from head to toe. His eyelids went heavy, his sight blurry and his thoughts slowed down so much that his head couldn't hold them any more.

"Sleep," he mumbled as if in agreement and yawned.

"Let's go," Al said, and the next thing Scorpius knew, there was a pillow under and around his head, and downy sleep spreading out cosily inside of it, and a hammering noise everywhere that ruined the whole thing. He groaned and said, "Would someone please make this noise stop?" Or at least that's what he thought he said. What came out of his mouth was more like, "Loud. Aahhh."

Something soft and pillowy hit him half in the face. He raised his hands and slapped it away in delayed self-defence.

It turned out to be an actual pillow. He groaned.

"Get up. We're about to be late for Transfiguration."

This kick-started his frontal lobe and made him sit up and squint into the world by way of trial. He was in his bed, in a dorm that was rapidly emptying of fully clothed people to the soundtrack of his alarm clock in phase 4 (of 4 – the ultimate wake-up call, presumably loud and annoying enough to wake up the entire house Ravenclaw. Yes, Ravenclaw, up in the Ravenclaw Tower). Albus was hopping around on one leg trying to put on his trousers.

If Scorpius had ever seen Groundhog Day, he would have recognized this moment as the grand solution scene. Something had happened the way it had been supposed to, and thus the cycle had been broken.

But he had never seen Groundhog Day. What he had seen was McGonagall slapping tardy people with draconian detentions. So he hit his alarm until it quietened down, rolled out of bed feeling much like a drunk and tangled slinky and started to get dressed to the best of his abilities.

"We're way too late for breakfast. I'll go get some coffee for both of us from the kitchen. We'll meet at the classroom in six, alright?" Albus threw the strap of his book bag over his shoulder and was ready to go. Visibly tired, but ready to go.

"Alright," Scorpius said. The word came out muffled because he was stuck in his sweater at the time. Then, as he forced his head through the sweater's neck, he called, "Albus." Which was code for _We need to talk about that thing that happened tonight. That thing when you... You, uh. Gave me a hand job. _The very first one of his life, no less. The very best one of his life, incidentally. It was the best thing that had happened to him in weeks. Months. Despite currently being in a state of exhausted panic, he felt cured of something.

At the same time, there was the nagging doubt and confusion about the whole situation.

Albus understood and halted his hasty exit for a heartbeat. "We can talk about it later," he said. Which was code for _But we don't have to. It's really not that complicated_.

Scorpius, still dazed and tired, didn't get that last half, so he said, "Yeah, okay," which wasn't a code. It just meant 'Yeah, okay.'

Once Albus was out the door, Scorpius sank down onto the edge of his mattress for a minute and tried to wrap his head around the notion of getting a hand job from his best friend the night before and then still having him as a best friend the morning after – as if nothing at all had happened, and nothing had changed.

He was both immensely relieved and irritated by that state of affairs and he could not, for the life of him, say how this combination was even possible. Also, it was too early in the morning to puzzle it out, so he frowned at the laces as he tied his shoes as if they were responsible for this chaos.

Then he ran to class and practically didn't have time to think about any of it for the following three days.

_/_

_~17 to 15 days left_

Scorpius wouldn't have thought it possible to be so very busy unless one was the Minister of Magic oneself. Starting the moment he rushed out of the dungeon and arrived in McGonagall's classroom one measly minute too late, he barely had time to eat or sleep.

After a miserable lesson of Transfiguration – spent wedged between Parkinson and Pritchard this time because it was the only free seat left, yearning for that steaming cup of coffee he could witness growing cold on Albus' desk two rows over – he realised that he had left his Astronomy homework in the dorm. Retrieving it from there cost him several minutes, the very same several minutes he ended up too late for class. Professor Sinistra wasn't was as lenient as Professor McGonagall – who had "merely" slapped a two-feet essay about the basics of untransfiguration on him that was due on Friday – and went straight for detention, to be served the same evening after sundown. And finally, to top it all off, the following period of Care saw him being shat on by a crup. The time between finding a clean set of robes and the start of his detention with Sinistra was filled with a hasty meal, first and last one of its kind that day, and hunting for books on untransfiguration in the library while simultaneously dodging Sophie Cattermole.

He crept into bed around eleven. Everyone else – including Albus, judging by the snoring – was already fast asleep.

The following day started with another instance of almost sleeping in and continued with a Potions accident that no one could remember because such was the nature of the potion involved. Along with all of his classmates and Professor Smith, Scorpius found himself in the hospital wing with a hiccup that made green smoke come out of his nostrils.

The professor told them that the lesson would be repeated on Friday evening from seven to nine o'clock. Everyone was just _thrilled_.

In History, Scorpius fell asleep. This hadn't happened for a long time, and he maintained that it wasn't entirely his fault – Astronomy detention had taken forever the day before so that he had only got six hours of shut-eye, he had not had time for a proper meal or a real caffeine infusion, and Professor Binns' voice was a sedative on a good day. Normally, it wouldn't even have been so bad. The professor had gotten used to pupils nodding off in his class sometime during the three hundred years he'd been teaching here, so he tended to ignore them.

Scorpius, however, managed to bodily slide off his chair as he slept, plough into the heavy mahogany map stand that had been put down very near his desk, which toppled the contraption, which then shattered one of the windows. Which led to Scorpius' second detention (to be served later that day and spent with copying pages from his History textbook like a bloody second year student) and second punishment essay (on one of the two dozen goblin wars, Scorpius didn't even remember which one) that week, not to mention a full thirty point deduction from Slytherin house and several unfriendly side glances from his housemates during the following Divination lesson.

While the others were falling asleep in their beds, Scorpius sat in the all but deserted common room that Thursday night, finishing the untransfiguration essay and scribbling the goblin essay (using the notes Shrew had kindly lent him). After that, he wrote a letter to his father explaining what had happened – after all, Hogwarts would bill him for the broken window and tell him about his offspring not taking classes seriously. It was midnight when he was done and finally fell into bed. Around five in the morning, he woke again from a very vivid nightmare involving a howler, being disinherited, committing suicide and his ghost becoming Professor Binns' trainee teacher for all eternity as punishment. He tried to go back to sleep for two hours, and actually fell asleep – ten minutes before his alarm went off again.

Despite feeling completely whacked, Friday almost went well. Transfiguration and Runes went by without incident. In third period, however, Amanda killed their puffapod by drowning it ("Oops!"), which earned them both bad marks and a rather stern look from Professor Longbottom. Scorpius was more than a little mad at Amanda but didn't feel like confronting her because that would mean standing close to her, and that would mean more obnoxious touchy-feely-flirting from her, so he just seethed in silence, at a distance and watched her as she chatted up Michael Bowen.

Lastly, in Defence against the Dark Arts, Professor Finnegan decided to finish the week with a bang and confronted the class with the plans for the coming end-term exams to which he would now gradually hold individual preliminary tests, starting next Tuesday. The announcement shocked most everyone into round-eyed silence. After class, Mariella promptly called for an emergency study group meeting no one dared not to attend.

When the meeting was done, they trudged into the Potions classroom to repeat the lesson they had collectively forgotten the day before.

By half past ten that Friday evening, Scorpius curled up in bed, thoroughly exhausted. He thanked the merciful Morgane that they only had class on alternate Saturdays, and that tomorrow would not be one of _those_ Saturdays.

Mid-prayer, it occurred to him that there would be Quidditch practice at eleven, though.

He opened his eyes a little and turned his head. Albus was a dark, lumpy shape in the bed next to his, softly illuminated by the light that emanated from under Prince's blanket as Prince was "inconspicuously" reading or writing something.

They hadn't talked after all. Scorpius frowned to himself. They hadn't talked about _that_, and they hadn't talked much in general. Al had been by his side like always, they had sat next to each other in most of the classes as usual, and sometimes during mealtimes, and during that emergency study group session.

Everything was normal. Everything was like it always had been.

Except that it wasn't. At least not for him. Not when he thought about it.

Scorpius closed his eyes and tried to come up with something to say. About _that_. Because he somehow felt that something needed to be said... about _that_.

Should he thank him? How? "Your effort has been a great success, Mr Potter," he heard himself say. "Ever since you put your, well, your hand on me, I've been practically immune to feminine wiles. I am deeply grateful." He suppressed a snort.

It was true, though. He remembered successfully dodging Kate Macmillan in that horrible Transfiguration class in Wednesday, being merely annoyed by Amanda on Thursday and actively ignoring Briony Parkinson in Runes on Friday. They were still interested in him with frightening and unnatural intensity, but the spell seemed to have been broken somehow for him.

Plus, he didn't have the dreams any more, and he hadn't had an issue with morning wood since the Tuesday night incident. His lack of sleep and energy was now solely due to a combination of overwork, detentions, irregular food intake and too much coffee – like a normal person.

Most importantly, though, ever since Tuesday night, his mind had been on other things for once. Things that weren't located between his legs, or on other people's chests. Since that day Mr Weasley had cursed him in the south wing study, he had been obsessing about that temporarily dysfunctional body part, and about girls' various body parts, without even fully noticing it. "It probably sounds corny," he thought at Al, "but your touch has healed my OCD."

Al mumbled something in his sleep and turned over. Scorpius couldn't even see whether he turned toward him or away from him.

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, then closed his eyes, knowing that when he would wake up again, only two weeks would be left on that damned spell, and Rose would only be at Hogwarts for another two weeks. Two weeks would be all that stood between him and actual normality.

Except that that moment in that toilet stall would never un-happen.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	12. Chapter 12

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations, original characters (recycled because I like them)

/

_Hello, hello, hello again! (*cue that obnoxious song by The Cars I'll have stuck in my head for the rest of the week*)_

_Thanks to Guest (how many of you are there now? Are you the "Another Guest" who reviewed chapter 6?) for reviewing :) I chuckled mightily at "his problem has been fixed" ___*evil laugh* Y_eah, I never let my protagonists off the hook that easily... *evil laugh continues* _

_So. _That thing_ has happened. We still have 5 chapters to go. One might ask oneself what else the author could possibly inflict upon those characters. Well... only one way to find out!_

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><p><strong><em>~Chapter 12~<br>_**

_~14 days left_

It was a beautiful day.

Scorpius woke at 9 a.m., refreshed and ready for the day, took a leisurely shower and had a big Saturday breakfast accompanied by a letter from his dad that boiled down to 'I'm actually surprised it took you 6 years to fall asleep in Binns' class and get caught, I've done that in 3. Shame on the window, though. Try to prop yourself up properly next time so you won't hurt yourself. And maybe don't get caught again. Love, Dad.' The weather was wonderful, the sky crisp and blue, the sun bright, making all the snow and ice glitter and sparkle.

"Perfect training weather," Lloyd remarked as he unlocked the door to the locker rooms, showers and equipment chambers. "Calls for a perfect training." He looked at Scorpius when he said it, and Scorpius looked right back at him with clenched teeth thinking _Just you wait._

He was ready. He was determined. He was prepared to wear a goddamned jockstrap if that was what it would take.

And the circumstances were different now. He was _healed_. Tuesday night, Albus Potter had healed him.

They changed into training gear in near silence – Scorpius went to the equipment room for some more grease, then to the bathroom to put on the jockstrap he had just taken from the equipment room; it was exactly as uncomfortable as he had expected and made him look like the most well-endowed sixteen year old boy on planet Earth so he was glad for the leather gear that hid all that –, readied their various pieces of Quidditch gaming devices and carried their brooms out onto the pitch. The only thing missing was a heroic instrumental sound track.

Lloyd made his speech, a bit more aggressive and specific than last time. Apparently, he had spied on the Gryffindor training, and the Gryffindors were apparently preparing for war. The logical conclusion was that his team would be preparing for an even meaner war.

Eventually, they leapt onto their brooms and took off.

There was a moment of pure elation. Scorpius pressed himself onto his broom and accelerated, nothing but the blue sky above him, and his teammates around him. The wind raked his hair.

Everything was perfect.

For fifteen minutes or so at least.

Ten minutes of breakneck manoeuvres and of racing Al around the pitch for warm-up, weaving through the spectators' stands and the hoop poles. Five minutes of passing time training Bludgers back and forth. His face was starting to hurt from a perpetual grin.

Then, while he climbed up toward the outer edge of the dome, a feeling sparked under his belly button. It grew a little, and then expanded rapidly, and as it did, it got _very_ uncomfortable very quickly. This time, it felt as if his private bits had been sprayed with cayenne pepper, or maybe dragon's breath.

He cursed and put his feet onto his crossbars again to lift himself up from his broom, which made the feeling subside almost immediately, then tried to maintain his speed and direction and get a little higher. Out of the others' sight, or of Lloyd's, in any case.

He came to a halt and started to un- and re-wrap the strap on his bat around his wrist. He had to use his teeth because he couldn't let go of the broom with his other hand. It was a reasonable precaution, given that he couldn't hold the bat with two hands any more from here on in when hitting, and it also gave him something to do for a moment. And he needed a moment to think.

_What do I do?_ His brain was working feverishly. _What happened? _Everything had worked out so well before. _What did I do wrong?_

He saw Albus hovering twenty metres below. He was looking up at him. Their eyes met.

Albus shook his head a little and seemed to mumbled something to himself, then pointed down with his index finger – to the locker rooms – in a clear command for him to fly down to it, then gave his broom handle a push and dove. Towards Lloyd.

Scorpius' breath caught in his throat. What would he be telling him?

_He wouldn't... ?!_

_No._ He shook his head. Albus wouldn't embarrass him. Ever.

But what _would_ he tell him? That he was injured? Ill? Had some sort of problem with his broom? What would Lloyd say about that?

Scorpius spiralled downwards over the locker rooms, touching down near the entrance, all the while looking up at Albus who was still hovering near the captain, talking to him. Eventually, he saw Albus pull his wand from his holster and point it at the training Bludgers which promptly followed him in his descent towards Scorpius.

"I'm sorry," Scorpius burst out once he was in hearing range. "It- I can't help it." Then, feeling increasingly desperate, "Maybe we should bring in McDonough instead. Or Collins. She did an okay job at the try-outs, I'm sure you could talk Lloyd into-"

"Shut up," Albus interrupted him almost absent-mindedly, steered the Bludgers to rest on the ground and dropped his broom as well, leaving it to hover half a foot in the air. Next, he took him roughly by the upper arm and pulled him into the tunnel.

"We've got ten minutes, maybe fifteen," he said, talking really fast. "We need to come up with some cool beater trick. Any inspiration? From the Danes, maybe?"

"Ow, Al, slow down," Scorpius complained as he was dragged along. Albus didn't decelerate one bit, neither in terms of walking nor talking, and he didn't ease up on the grip, either. "Where are we going? What's going on?"

"I'm thinking about the double fork prongs, like Iversen and Ostergaard used to do them, actually," he said as if he hadn't spoken, "just diagonally and lengthwise instead of side-by-side and front-to-back, just like we accidentally did that one time last summer in that match against Hufflepuff. Remember that?"

"Uh, yes," Scorpius said. Incidentally, the original move had been one of the "Top 20 Game Changers" in the issue of _Quidditch Today_ he had been reading the day when Rose's parents came to the Manor. It had been one of only four moves for beaters on that list, so naturally, Scorpius had practically drooled all over it (much to Albus' chagrin who firmly rooted for the Irish and regarded his fascination with the Danish team as betrayal of his British roots). And of course he remembered that game against Hufflepuff. He had unseated Mary Anne Spinnet that day with a clean shot to the shoulder. "But- Al, what are we doing?"

Half pushed, half pulled, he stumbled into the empty locker room.

"We're talking strategy in private, and we're coming up with this super-duper new move that happens to look just like the double fork prongs," Albus informed him. "I hope you've been paying attention."

He locked the door from the inside, then turned around to him.

"Lloyd doesn't exactly approve, but what the hell. I told him I'd need the flip chart and a bit of peace and quiet and all that. Bought us ten minutes or so."

Out of the fifteen questions Scorpius had, the one that made it out first was, "Al, why did you just lock the door?"

Albus looked at him, sighed, and then said, "Pull down your trousers."

/

"I. Um." Nothing else.

Al frowned. "We can go to the bathroom again, if you prefer-"

"Albus, I..."

His friend looked at him – not straight in the eye, but slightly to the side, he noted – and actually waited for him to continue that sentence, or maybe to drop his pants as commanded. Scorpius did neither, hence, a very awkward silence fell.

"Ever since..." Albus eventually started, then couldn't get it out and changed course. "Since Tuesday night, you seemed normal again. More relaxed. So I think there's a chance that... it might have a positive effect. Now. Save you from that, uh, bad feeling."

_Your touch has healed me_, Scorpius thought and chewed on his tongue. It had sounded stupid, and the 'remedy' had only withstood provocation for a quarter of an hour, but what if he was right?

What if he just needed another dose?

Al shrugged. "I mean, it's worth a try, I think." Then, a little more quietly, he said, "Don't make me watch you go through a training session like that again. Please. It was just painful to look at. And we already talked about the McDonough thing. I don't want to fly with anyone else."

It would have been easier, not to mention more dignified, to just call it quits. To tell Lloyd that he was indisposed for the next two weeks, somehow bear with Lars McDonough as his substitute no matter how big of a baby Albus wanted to be about it. To hope that Lloyd would let him play the other games of the season yet somehow survive if he decided against it. Come next year's try-outs, he would rock everyone's socks again and get his spot back, guaranteed.

But he really wanted to play. Now.

And-

And he also kind of, sort of wanted...

There was another type of warmth under his belly button now, to match the one that started creeping up his neck and into his face.

He blew out some air through his nose, then turned and walked to the bathroom.

Albus followed him without another word, but Scorpius could almost feel that grim determination radiating from him, warming his back.

The stall was barely half as big as the one in the dungeon bathroom. The limited space required bending over the toilet to get the inward-swinging door shut when they were both inside. Eventually, the door was closed, and the two of them were locked in together.

The space was really cramped. Scorpius shuffled around to face the wall. His right heel touched against the toes of Albus' left foot.

While Albus took off his glove, Scorpius fumbled with the leather bits of his gear, peeled the tight trousers down to mid-thigh, and finally pulled the plastic cup out of the jockstrap. Still holding on to it because there was nowhere he could easily put it, he braced himself against the wall just like last time. Closed his eyes. Waited.

They flew open again despite himself at first skin contact, when Albus' fingertips slid beneath the waistband of that jockstrap.

"Am I hurting you?" Albus asked, just like he had the first time. He must have felt the ripple that had gone through his body.

"Ah, no." Scorpius shook his head. He braced himself, tensing the muscles in his abdomen so they wouldn't hitch again. "Go on."

Al breathed. "Alright," he mumbled. "I'll, ah. I'll go slow..."

Scorpius still flinched yet again when his palm slid over him. "Hah," he half-breathed, half-laughed through his nose. "Your hand is really warm."

And then no one said another word for several minutes. The only sounds were Scorpius' increasingly ragged, shallow breathing, the rustle of fabric, and that rhythmic, slick sound. Skin against skin.

Even though it shouldn't be possible, it felt even better than Tuesday night. Scorpius pressed his lips together as hard as he could to keep from making sounds, especially when Albus did that thing with his fingers, on the tip-

"Shit," he hissed when he did exactly that thing twice and every muscle in his body wanted to twitch in unison.

"What?" He stopped mid-movement.

Scorpius gasped. "No. No, it's good. You're- it's really good." He almost cried out with relief when he continued. "Good," he repeated, and then Albus repeated that thing again, and he whispered, in spite of himself, "Fucking good."

He did it twice more. The second time, Scorpius looked down to see the movement of his fingers, the outline of his knuckles straining against the white fabric, a wet spot darkening it, and his thoughts started to reel and unravel. He clenched his teeth. "Albus-"

And then he threw his head back and groaned as the world became immensely unimportant for a bit.

While the carousel slowly stopped spinning, Albus offered him toilet paper again. He took it, and felt the same sort of shame he had the last time. _Is this becoming a ritual?_ he almost asked, _Because if it is, I could start at commenting at execution, to, you know, improve the experience, and let me tell you, that moment of hesitation in the middle there always just about _kills_ me_ but then he didn't because it might sound like he was seriously _expecting_ that it would happen again. Maybe even regularly.

Suddenly, he couldn't be in Albus Potter's vicinity any more. The closeness lead to an acute risk of having to look him in the eye and he didn't know what might happen.

"I'm, uh... I need more space to get dressed again. I'll have to- get out," he said instead while stupidly trying to pull up his trousers with one hand. He still had the jock cup in the other. During the past few minutes he had clenched down on it so hard that his fingers and his palm hurt a little where the edge had pressed into his skin.

Albus nodded and stammered back something that mostly sounded like 'yes, of course' and 'go ahead' and 'I'll have to use the, uh, toilet anyway' as Scorpius, hunched over a little in a protective posture, bodily pushed past him and out the door.

He tried to get his clothes and his thoughts back in order in the locker room. The former was easier to accomplish than the latter.

When he checked himself in the mirror, his reflection cast a very suspicious glance at him that lingered especially on his slightly sweaty and blotchy face, so long that he almost wanted to snap something like "I just got _another_ hand job from my best friend, so shut the fuck up!" at it.

Said best friend came storming out of the bathroom now, rearranging his glove in obvious hurry. "Alright, so, fork prongs, and any other nifty moves we can come up with. If it doesn't... doesn't work, you'll fake a migraine or something and we'll think of something else. Got it?" he asked as if the previous eight minutes hadn't really taken place at all. He also avoided his eyes. And his face matched Scorpius' in blotchiness.

Scorpius blinked, momentarily confused about _everything_, and reflexively answered, "Uh, got it," just as he remembered that this was all about Quidditch and finding an alibi for randomly leaving the training for ten minutes.

Albus looked at him for a split second and opened his mouth, but closed it again without having said anything, then nodded curtly and brushed past him out the door and onto the corridor. Scorpius followed his half-running step as if pulled by a rip tide, trying not to stare at the gloved right hand clenched to a fist by his thigh that drew his eyes like a magnet.

/

The rest of the practice session was eventful in its uneventfulness. They both got yelled at for taking so long, then leapt on their brooms and rose up into the air in sync as if they had been born to do just that. The quasi-fork prongs which they had to demonstrate shortly after met with very little enthusiasm, but it appeased Lloyd and that was enough.

Scorpius waited for a re-emergence of _that_ feeling or any type of magically enhanced discomfort but apart from the chafe and pinch of the jockstrap, nothing happened.

The only noticeably weird feeling he got was that short stutter of his breath, like a fluttering of bird wings, whenever saw Albus Potter watching him so very closely.

_Not looking _at_ me,_ he thought. _Only looking _after_ me._

He hit the Bludgers with all the force he had.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	13. Chapter 13

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (as seen below...), original characters

/

_Thanks to BKStories, DemonDragon8331 and my Weird Guest for reviews! (Weird Guest: I also hope I made the coming chapters as interesting as the previous ones... at least I tried =.= (Seriously, I struggle with that. The hind parts of my fics are always such a pain...) Also: You *forgot* the Weird part? :D)  
><em>

_So! Everyone on board as we watch Scorpius nose-dive spectacularly? Strap yourselves in, we're going down. _

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><p><strong><em>~Chapter 13~<br>_**

_~11 days left_

Tuesday was quickly becoming Scorpius' least favourite day of the week. Dealing with Amanda in Herbology while watching and occasionally listening to Rose Weasley on the next table at seven thirty in the cold, dark winter morning was a bad way to start the day. Both Runes and History only made him aggressive. The following hour of DADA then gave this aggression an outlet that resulted in him sending Tyler Peverell to the hospital wing in exchange for a two foot essay on duelling decorum, specifically on asking one's duelling partner if he's ready before sending major scale hexes his way.

Study group after that just seemed like the insult that was added to the injury.

And study group was just the prelude to another session of Quidditch training.

"Lord Malfoy, we'd all appreciate it if you could un-bunch your panties," Mariella Lawless grumbled at him when he snapped back at Briony Parkinson after she had snapped at him that his explanations of bloody third year Potions material were too cryptic for her to follow.

He was just getting up and ready to all-out yell at Lawless when Albus got up next to him, clapped an iron hand on his shoulder and said, "You know what, Malfoy and I are going to leave you all to it now. Sorry for that, Lawless. We've got Quidditch stuff to do."

Scorpius looked at that hand on his shoulder and then up at his friend's face, utterly confused.

"We've got at least half an hour, though," Brice interjected with a glance at his wristwatch, also perplexed. "Did Lloyd say anything about starting earlier last time?"

"No, it's not general practice. Just beater stuff. Malfoy and I decided to throw in some extra time."

That seemed to mollify Brice. Beater performance had been so bad lately, every second of additional training made sense to him.

"What, you're just going to walk out?" Mariella was personally offended.

"Uhm." Albus pretended to ponder for a moment, packing up his stuff. "Yes."

She stared at him, open-mouthed and speechless. Those were the things only Albus Severus Potter could get away with.

"What about my homework?" Briony whined. Her hand had slid onto Scorpius' thigh under the table. Scorpius chose that very second to jump up and gather up his own parchments and books.

"You'll be fine, I'm sure," Albus said. "If you keep having problems with that particular bit, I can send my sister to help you out, though."

Briony narrowed her eyes. "Your sister's in second year," she pointed out.

"Exactly." Albus beamed. "See you guys later," he said to everyone, and murmured a "Come on" to Scorpius.

He didn't have any other choice than to run after him – which reminded him of last Saturday, which darkened his mood even more. Only when they were safely in the dungeon corridors he asked sharply, "What was that all about?"

"You were about to rip her head off, man," Al said with a sort of quiet reproach, not even specifying whether he meant Briony or Mariella.

"So what?" he mumbled, suddenly almost sheepish about being so angry all day.

It was not like he didn't have ample reason.

Albus just clicked his tongue and said nothing more.

Wordlessly, they fetched their brooms and gear from the dorm and made their way down to the pitch. Hufflepuff players were coming their way, having just finished their own training and looking way too cheerful for it.

Scorpius shoulder-tackled the locker room door open, then stomped the residual snow off his boots with quite a bit more energy than needed. He thumped his sports bag down on the bench and ripped the zip open, tempted to upend it and see all the contents tumble out onto the floor.

"Scorp."

He clenched his jaw and unpacked the bag the conventional way, just forcefully.

"Scorp." He could almost hear the frown.

"What." The word seemed to whet itself on his teeth.

Silence. Scorpius kept unpacking. The jockstrap – washed, after getting that stain on it last time... Scorpius felt the back of his neck prickle and heat up – was all the way at the bottom.

"That bad?" Albus asked.

In his mind, Scorpius whirled around to him, the offensive white piece of clothing still in hand. In his mind, he yelled "Bad? Bad, you say?" at him, and then said, "Let me tell you about my day."

His morning had started around 4 a.m., when he had entered R.E.M. sleep and his brain started to sprout pictures and scenes and feelings again.

There were fewer redheads in them now, he had noticed upon waking. He had also noticed that his blanket was forming a tent around his middle.

And the first thing he had done was to turn his head and look over at the bed next to his. It had occurred to him to get up, walk over, shake Al awake by the shoulder.

Lie down beside him.

He knew, Albus would have been confused and irritated with being woken at such an ungodly hour – but he would have nodded and scooted over to make room for him without a second thought. As if that were bloody obvious.

Finally, the logical, rational part of his brain had got itself into gear and the anger at taken over.

Firstly, he registered that he was right back where he had started. The uncontrolled lust was back, with a vengeance. That was bad enough with eleven bloody days (and nights) to go.

Secondly, his first idea upon waking with a boner had been _to bloody go to his friend and ask him for a helping hand._

A whisper of fear had mixed in with the anger. What if _that_ wouldn't go away in eleven days? What if it was permanent? What would he do then? His heart had wandered upwards and lodged itself firmly in his throat, still beating there instead of in his chest occasionally, fourteen hours later.

It was _insane_. This curse had warped his... his _everything_.

And thirdly, Albus supposed reaction. Saintly in his understanding, as if the whole thing, including the part where he just jerked him off, were self-evident. As if it was no biggie.

Albus, unfazed, equanimous. And then... unchanged. Like nothing was different.

Almost out of spite (but mainly out of desperation), he had got up – at 4 a.m. - and taken an ice cold shower until his fingertips and toes had turned blue. Still shivering, he had got back into bed, only to lie awake for two and a half hours, silently seething, angry at Albus and the world and himself. (Also, shivering. Cold showers at Hogwarts were a mere degree away from becoming a blizzard.) Eventually, his alarm had started ringing and the day had not got any better from there.

But instead of saying any of that, he held up the garment in his fist like an angler might hold up his proud catch and, glowering, said, "Gonna go put this on now." _Diaper-slash-chastity belt. It's either this, or you just doing your duty, as a friend._

Somehow, he preferred the former.

He tried to make his way over to the bathroom. Albus' left hand shot out and pushed against his chest, barring his way.

"Scorp," he said mildly, as if he wasn't just using force to obstruct him. "Talk to me."

He felt the urgent need to hit him. He couldn't really explain it. Or rather, the explanation was so very stupid that it didn't qualify as such. _You think you somehow have to do – that – because you're my friend and that it's just normal and I can't fucking take it, _but also mixed with a big dash of_ I have no other choice, do I?_

Then again, if he did hit him, Albus would probably just accept that, too, and that would just make him hit him again.

"Scorpius," he hissed at him, pushing him back onto his heels with his hand. "Just say a damn word." _Ask me for help, you stubborn, prideful git._

The four-o'clock-anger flared back up, fresh and unfiltered like it had been in the morning. "I don't want your bloody help," he almost hissed back, "and your goddamn pity, I want-" And then his thoughts broke off because not even they knew how to finish that sentence.

Their eyes met.

Scorpius could almost see him reading his mind like an open book.

Albus merely sighed at what he read.

Scorpius balled his fist by his side.

Al's hand, still pressed against his chest, curled up and bunched up the front of his robe until he had a hold on him. Once he did, he pulled, hard.

Caught off guard and off balance, Scorpius stumbled forward with a surprised yell and found himself first dragged, then shoved toward the bathroom by the robe and the shoulders respectively. He protested, to very little avail.

"You stubborn git," Albus said as he stepped through the door after him, shutting it behind himself. "In," he said, jerking his head toward the stalls.

He glowered and didn't move. The words 'I don't want it. I mean, I want it, and only because I need it, but I also don't want it like that' sat there in his mouth, but wouldn't come out because his brain froze up trying to define 'that' and its counterpart, and because it was straight-up nonsense.

Albus raised an eyebrow at the display of defiance. "Try to put on your stupid jockstrap and sit on a broom for two hours when you already have a semi."

He held his gaze for another second before shame won over. Ah, yes. That.

When he turned around and got into the stall, feeling somewhat like a beast being sent to its cage, he tried to imagine that Albus was smirking with self-satisfaction, but that would have required some sort of- of that something that wasn't there. That something whose absence infuriated him so much all of a sudden.

As he pulled open his belt and undid the button of his trousers, Albus locked the door from the inside. "We're going to get here half an hour earlier next Friday as well," he informed him matter-of-factly. "And on Saturday before the game."

"That's-" _not necessary_. _Also, stop talking like that. This isn't... business._

"Yes, it is." His left foot was touching Scorpius' right heel again. With every time they did this, the bathroom stalls seemed to be getting smaller.

Any type of response except a short "gah!" got stuck in his throat when he undid his fly zip. The movement had begun quick and casual. However, the slight vibration of the zipper's teeth when he pulled the tab down caused a feeling that was something like dunking ice cubes directly into his undies. And the ice cubes wriggled around there.

"You got it?" Al asked after a moment, deadpan, not making it any better at all, making Scorpius want to snap "Ask me if you can help me with anything and I'll smack you, I swear!" at him, but he couldn't verbalize.

He breathed out when it was done. The whole reason for this- measure- had vanished.

And still he peeled his trousers down a little because getting out of this stall without having... accomplished anything would mean turning around and also having to fight past Albus and he couldn't-

"Ready?"

Trick question.

He nodded once, tensed so he wouldn't flinch this time, closed his eyes.

Albus said, "Alright", and touched a hand to his hip and then slid it forward and down, causing Scorpius' convoluted thoughts and headaches to – not vanish, but retreat and fade a little. In turn, the present became prominent and defined, all sensations were clear and sharp as if etched with a scalpel. He could feel his own shallow breaths, the heat rising from his middle outward, sweat pricking out of his pores, especially under his arms and on his chest, the heat tingling under the skin of his neck and his cheeks, the smooth coolness of the tiles against his palms – and every little twitch and movement of Albus' fingers, amplified by a hundred.

The urge to thrust his hip into that movement was almost overwhelming. Madly, there was also the urge to open his mouth and comment. Tell him how good it felt. How much he liked it when he did _that_. How much he wanted him to do _that_ again. He pressed his lips together to keep those words inside.

He peeked down through his eyelashes.

The sight locked his breath in his lungs for several long heartbeats. His stomach dropped an inch or two. Still, he couldn't look away.

"Alright?" Albus asked, merely slowing down, mercifully not stopping this time. Keeping his steady rhythm with his long, warm fingers gliding back and forth, back and forth, back and-

His voice came strangled when Scorpius replied, "Harder."

"Sco-"

"Harder, faster," he repeated, more certain, more urgent. "Please."

Albus exhaled audibly and obliged.

He shifted his body, moving a little closer. His left hip pressed up against the right part of Scorpius' backside, and when Scorpius adjusted his posture and leaned back a little, his chest and side touched Scorpius' right flank.

In the end, they were almost leaning into the other, as if for support.

When it was done – Scorpius groaned through a clenched jaw, screwed his eyes shut and threw his head back – they stood like that for a long moment, close together with their respective body heat palpably trapped between them in that little contact area.

Eventually, Albus pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed at the wall tiles. Two incantations later, the droplets in evidence had vanished.

It would have been easier to just mop them up with toilet paper, but that would have necessitated turning and leaving the spot he was in. Breaking the contact.

Scorpius was thankful, for that long moment, that he didn't move away. His legs felt like jello. And he could feel Albus' chest rising and falling – quite rapidly at that – against his body and it was really rather nice. Reassuring.

Not another word was said until the official training began twenty minutes later.  
>During training, everything was shouted questions and answers, short and to the point, information being exchanged rapidly over roaring wind.<p>

After the training, no one spoke, either. The day had been exhausting for everyone and Lloyd was a bloody slave driver.

Wednesday, the day after, started almost like the day before. Except that the silhouettes populating Scorpius' non-wet dreams were definitely less feminine than they used to be, and that Scorpius, upon waking into a half-dreamlike, drowsy state, curled up and sobbed himself back to sleep, not knowing why he felt so wretched.

In the bed next to his, Albus lay with his eyes open.

/

_~7 days left_

Sitting next to Albus in double Charms that Saturday morning was nerve-wracking.

Scorpius just couldn't get his head around how he managed to compartmentalize things so neatly. It was as if there were two Albuses – the toilet stall Albus, and the regular Albus. And the two didn't mix or overlap at all. What toilet stall Albus did or said did not influence how regular Albus treated him.

Toilet stall Albus had heard him actually _moan_ yesterday. He hadn't been able to help it, and some of those stupid thoughts – about how he felt and how it felt – had spilled out right along in the slipstream of those moans.

Toilet stall Albus knew exactly how and where to touch him now. He was learning how to play him like an instrument. It frightened Scorpius and also made him weak in the knees.

Regular Albus apparently didn't think any less of him for that. In fact, he didn't seem to think about any of it at all. He didn't behave differently around him, and if he also had sweaty palms, he absolutely didn't let it show. He still looked him in the eye evenly, still talked about the same topics with the same voice and the same words and the same naturalness. It just irritated Scorpius because it didn't make any sense.

And just – he checked the clock on the wall – two hours from now, he had another meeting planned with toilet stall Albus. The soles of his feet began to itch at the thought.

The last meeting ever.

Friday next week, six days from now, at nine a.m., Rose would depart.

Saturday next week, seven days from now, Tactus Torporis was scheduled to finally wear off.

Between now and then, there would be no Quidditch practice or game, hence no reason for Al to- lend a hand.

Scorpius felt himself become jittery at the thought. Six whole days without assistance seemed like a long, long time now. _Calm down_, he told himself. _You have gone twenty seven days without it before. You can do it._

_But_, another voice interjected somewhat wailingly, _it was miserable. And it's going to be more miserable now because it has definitely gotten more intense_. As if his mind was actively working against a spell that was made to inhibit sexual release, his dreams were absolutely crazy lately, extensive and vivid like never before and occurring with regularity, and his thoughts were definitely spinning around one thing only at every waking hour unless he met them with the kind of steely resolve that was exhausting and impossible to maintain. His whole body seemed to hum with horniness.

When his brain had kicked in again after his verbal meltdown yesterday, he also started doubting that it was normal for a simple hand job to blow his mind like it did. Sure, Scorpius had never before had anyone else touch him like that (he hadn't even properly kissed by anyone yet.) (That one time with Mariella on his thirteenth birthday party didn't really count.), and sure, Albus had plenty of experience in that regard by virtue of being a guy himself (and allegedly practising on himself at least four times a week for years and years), but still, it seemed disproportional.

Suddenly, Albus nudged him with an elbow. Scorpius winced and sat up. "Pardon?"

"Welcome back, Mr Malfoy," Professor Flitwick said dryly. "I'm guessing you'd like me to repeat the question?"

"Uhm, yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir," he admitted ruefully. A week from now, he would start to seriously make amends on all scholarly fronts, he decided as he stuttered his way through the answer.

He just hoped that, a week from now, sitting next to Albus wouldn't be weird any more. He feared that it would.

He feared that he would miss toilet stall Albus.

He feared that that the idea of lying next to him in his bed would stay in his head.

He sighed. _Back to normal,_ he prayed silently. _Like things were before the Christmas hols._

"Do you need help with that?" Al asked, startling him.

"Uhm, no," he said quickly. Only then he noticed that everyone else was busy scribbling.

Al looked at him sideways, patiently waiting.

"Well. Yes," he amended, withering a little under that gaze. "What was that last bit again?"

His friend sighed. "Those must be some killer daydreams," he mumbled. Before Scorpius could even react to that, Al was already explaining water-making spells and the problems with elementary charms to him in a low voice. He didn't lean over very far, and he also didn't lean away.

Scorpius caught himself wishing that he would. Either one.

/

After Charms was over, there was usually more than an hour's time for getting back to their rooms, dumping their book bags, making a trip to the kitchen for a pre-lunch snack because they would miss actual lunch, getting back to their rooms again, fetching their Quidditch things and making their way to the pitch, chatting and chilling all the while.

Today, though, Scorpius skipped forward to the last three items on the list and arrived at the pitch almost an hour early even for the warm-up for the game.

Half an hour early for his... appointment? engagement? … date?... with Albus.

With Albus #2, to be exact.

The other Albus had merely nodded and said, "'kay. Later," when he had split from the group, and then gone to the kitchen with Brice and Shrew.

Scorpius trudged down to the pitch, breathing a sigh of relief when the warmer air under the dome enveloped him, and sat down at the foot of the Slytherin stands which were still entirely empty and would continue to be empty until shortly after lunch.

To have something to do, he tended to his broom and his gloves, cleaning both with the tiny brushes from the cleaning set his parents had given him for Christmas five years ago. He had probably cared more for the set itself than actually using it for caring for his broom and gear. The jars of rich balms, lotions and greases were still more than half full, the brushes and other cleaning implements still looked as good as new.

Just as a certain calm had set in – the repetitive movements and the pungent smell of the leather balm helped him with that – a voice rang out from behind him.

"What are you doing here?"

He looked up, then turned around, swinging his legs over the beam to turn towards Rose Weasley.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)

_Did you know? I really like cliffhangers. And readers. And reviews._


	14. Chapter 14

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: You should seriously know this by now... *sigh* There's slash and certain situations that take place in bathrooms (not referring to that George Michael video clip) and original characters.

/

_Hey y'all! Only four more chapters to go (including the one below). My little story is growing up so fast. *sniff*  
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_Thanks to Weird Guest for reviewing! ("Don't bring Rose back... she's going to mess something up." Uhm. Every story needs a villain... and a catalyst... sorry...)_

_And thanks to you (yeah, you!) for reading this far! Ready for the next part?_

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><p><strong><em>~Chapter 14~<em>**

Rose's hair was messy and her cheeks and the tip of her nose were ruddy from the cold. She was wearing the protective parts of Quidditch gear over thick, woollen clothes. Several layers of them, apparently, which made her look somewhat like the Michelin man. Also, a pair of those mittens that connected with a cord through the sleeves and whose top parts could be peeled back to expose the fingertips, and pink earmuffs that clashed horribly with all the other shades of red. She was carrying her broom over her shoulder.

"Waiting for warm-up and the game," he said. His mouth was suddenly very dry. It had been an eternity since they had last spoken, and the last time they had spoken, she had ripped out his heart in one smooth motion. "I don't have to ask what you're up to, I guess." He nodded at her appearance.

She smiled. "Sometimes you just have to swing your butt on your broom and fly off for a while."

He nodded slowly, thinking 'Wow, that sounds... really theatrical and melodramatic', and didn't know what else to say to her. Anyway, she had been the one doing most of the talking those three months of (one-sided and admittedly false) bliss. He'd just been glad to listen.

"I'm going to miss that," she murmured as if to herself. It was only then that he remembered that she would be gone in six days. Apparently, she wouldn't get to take her broom with her.

"They'll have brooms in France, though," he said, mentally adding, "even though, judging by their national team's performance, they wouldn't know how to properly operate them if their collective lives depended on it."

"I know. Still, won't be the same." She shrugged one shoulder and sighed.

Scorpius knew that she wanted him to ask further questions. He didn't.

There was a short silence.

"So, uhm." Rose slipped the broom off her shoulder, scraping at an imaginary spot on the wood with a fingernail. "Scorpius, I..."

He looked up at her, keeping his face very neutral and refusing to help her get out whatever it was that she wanted to say.

She cleared her throat. "Look. About that... About _us_."

He exhaled and suddenly found that he really didn't want to talk about it, or even listen to her talk about it. It was part of a complicated past – a past that was well and truly _past. _Also, contemporary complications were more than enough for him already.

"It's okay," he said. "I know it was just about the Potions mark, really." And she had got an O in the midterms. If it had been entirely intentional tutoring, he would even have been proud.

Rose bit her lower lip in a way that he would have found knees-bucklingly endearing if only the past 37 days hadn't happened.

In fact, he found with some surprise, he _still_ found it rather endearing. The lip-biting, and the freckles on her nose, and the way that one curl fell across her face like in a shampoo commercial, just unintentionally.

"Is that what Al told you?" she asked, looking at him with that slight head tilt that girls just used subconsciously to melt boys' brains and hearts.

"Uh. Well. Yeah." Scorpius blinked, then cleared his throat. "You mean he... Wasn't that the truth?" _What am I even saying?_ he heard his thoughts echo in his skull. _I know for a fact that it was the bloody truth._

"Yeah. Well, you know," Rose uttered cryptically. "I suppose it sort-of was, and sort-of wasn't."

He blinked again and frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Rose slumped a little, and even that seemed cute. "Oh, come on, Scorpius. If it had _only_ been about Potions, I'd never have kept it going for three whole months."

_You wouldn't?_ it zoomed through his head. _Perhaps. How would I know? I obviously never knew you._

It took him a second to recover his speech. "S- So you're saying...," he prompted.

"I'm saying that if I hadn't liked you... you know, a little... I wouldn't have hung out all the time. Like, we did more than just Potions stuff. We talked. Like, about _every_thing." She raised a suggestive eyebrow and he immediately remembered her leaning over to him really closely to conspiratorially tell him all about how embarrassing it had been to get her period in the middle of a Quidditch game. "You know I wouldn't have done that if it had just been, like, business for me."

"B-But," he stammered, searching for words. "But you told me, that day at the greenhouses... You said we weren't even _friends_, that I was only..." Acquaintance. He still couldn't get it out. "And you- Rose, you bloody shot me down."

He couldn't help the sharp, accusing tone in his voice, or the crack at the end when some of that old pain suddenly surged back up. It wasn't even about her any more, really. Just a reaction to the lingering pain from where the trust he had put in another person had been betrayed. Betrayed badly.

"I know I did," Rose said slowly. Her arms were crossed before her chest defensively, the gesture encumbered somewhat by all the clothes she had on. Her face was a picture of contrition. "Just..." She breathed. "Try to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. You had... such high expectations of me, Scorpius. Your feelings were, like, so solid and huge. I mean," her voice dropped. "You thought about sleeping with me. Having a child with me. That was overwhelming. And frightening. We're sixteen, for Morgane's sake."

Scorpius didn't bother to correct her on that second bit. He merely stared at her as his thoughts raced and tried to decode what was happening here.

"You know, I needed to- I felt that I really needed to bring you back down to earth or things might have just spun out of control so fast. So I probably was- much harsher and more insensitive than I should have been."

She bit her lip again and he wanted to tell her to stop doing that. It was distracting.

"That's not so say that I had-" She huffed. "Look, on a scale from one to ten, your feelings for me were somewhere at seven, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong." He didn't. She wasn't. (Well, maybe a seven and a half.) "At the greenhouses, I acted like mine were a zero-" (More like minus eight.) "-when in fact they were... something like ... a two. Or three."

Two. Or three. Two or three out of ten, when ten meant something like hunka-hunka-burning-love. To the Scorpius of 34 days ago, those odds wouldn't have seemed so bad.

"Oh," he stuttered when he realized that she was waiting for him to say something. "That's..."

She looked at him, pressing her lips together in a rueful little smile. "Yeah," she replied emphatically.

No one said anything for a bit.

"I hope you can see how a seven might seem overwhelming to a two," Rose added quietly, "especially with all the things that had happened, the oracle and the spell- and then it all happened so fast, within four days... I spent years getting my future going, and then this thing, and everything's just about to topple over. Just like that."

He nodded and made a long 'hmm'.

She combed her hair back again with her fingers, such as the earmuffs allowed it anyway, and still smiled that apologetic smile of hers.

"And now...?" he asked, suddenly very aware of her dimples. Those _were_ killer dimples. Why hadn't he noticed them before?

"Now," she repeated and came half a step closer. "Well. Do you know that stupid old saying... 'Distance makes the heart grow fonder'?" Before he could ask another 'What does that mean?' she explained, tilting her head again and looking up in a dreamy kind of way, "I guess you could say that I'm a solid four now. Maybe even a five."

"Uhm, Rose," he began and got up slowly.

She came another step closer so that they were within each other's arm's reach. "Or six."

"Rose," he said again.

"Scorpius," she said, imitating his tone playfully, and reached up to touch his cheek.

His heart skipped two beats, but his blood was suddenly pumping through his veins at twice the normal pressure. Feelings from 34 days ago reared their heads, and as if they somehow hit the same frequency as the humming that inhabited his nether regions, they seemed bigger than ever before, making his insides pulse and oscillate.

Her eyes were hungry and he decided that he loved that look. He wished to be looked at like that as often as possible in the future.

But the feathery touch of her hand to his cheek, sliding along his jawline and to the back of his neck felt wrong.

Too feathery, actually. And her hand was so cold.

He tried to pull away, but the beam he had been sitting on was already pressing up against his calves and he couldn't go back any further.

"Scorpius," she murmured with a pleasant lilt in her voice.

"Scorpius?" Albus called, coming toward them with large strides from behind the other Slytherin stand.

"Al!" he shouted back, breath whooshing out of him and shoulders sagging in sudden relief.

Rose blinked, pulled her hand away and that look vanished. She staggered back two steps.

"Rose," Albus said, sounding surprised and... peeved? "Flying offroad again? So close to the game, too?"

"Yeah," Rose answered, weirdly also sounding surprised. "I just got back, so I'm totes on time." She looked from Scorpius to Albus and back. "Warm-up's coming up," she said, then peeled back her sleeve from her wrist to have a glance at her wristwatch. "You're both really early, though."

"Yes," Albus said, then looked at Scorpius. "Some _pre_-pre-game exercise."

Scorpius coughed and then quickly got very busy putting the broom maintenance kit back into the box.

"Well. I'll see you at the pre-match extravaganza, then," Rose said, shouldering her broom again. "We're _so_ going to kick your butts."

"You keep telling yourself that, and then throw the coin with your right hand over your left shoulder, blow away the eyelash, and lastly look out for the shooting star, and maybe dreams _will_ come true, coz," Albus replied airily.

Rose smirked at him, said, "See you on the pitch, Malfoy," and stalked off, nose in the air.

Albus watched her go for a long time.

Scorpius watched Albus, wondering if he was supposed to feel this... guilty. Guilty and faintly afraid, somehow. He couldn't tolerate these feelings for very long. His mouth started talking.

"She just told me that she was actually into me at the time," he heard himself say. When Albus turned his face toward him, he got back to his broom maintenance set, meticulously turning all the jars and bottles around so the labels faced upwards and rearranging the brushes and sponges. "A little, at least. Said she basically just panicked when the pregnancy thing came up and grossly overstated how she didn't like me at all."

Albus said nothing.

"I'm not sure how much of it was really her talking, though, and how much was just... destiny trying to push us together," he rambled on, thinking of but then deciding against mentioning how the spell her dad had put on her might have had the same sorts of effects on her. Like mental confusion and horniness.

"She seemed quite lucid and normal at the beginning there, but especially when she got all touchy-feely at the end, I got a bad kind of vibe from her so I, uhm, don't really know what to believe."

A nervous laugh bubbled up from his belly as if something was tickling him from the inside.

"Not that it really matters," he said, glancing up at his friend now. "I've been done with her for quite some time already. With her and...," he inhaled deeply and let the following words out in a quick rush, "and all the other girls, really."

He didn't know what kind of response he had hoped for, but he got exactly what he had expected.

Which was nothing much. An upward twitch of his eyebrows. A small sigh. A tiny nod that didn't necessarily mean 'yes' or 'I understand' but most likely something like 'I heard that you said something'.

"Because, you know, maybe it's not them," he added numbly, clicked the box in his lap shut absent-mindedly, shrugged. "Maybe it's destiny messing with them. Putting words in their mouths and making them do things. Or something about that Tactus spell. I'd never know, would I?"

"And that's the reason why you're swearing off girls in general," Albus stated, rather than asked, although there was a tiny upward inflection at the end.

Scorpius searched his face, trying to find a trace of that same uncertainty, the same curiosity there. Because he somehow felt that that uncertainty and the need to know would mean _the_ _world_. Al looked away before he could find it, though.

So he sighed, huffed a laugh through his nose, and said, "No. No, that's not it. Not really."

The muscle in his jaw tensed. Maybe his look got darker, but he couldn't say for sure because he was still not looking at him but into the distance, thinking Merlin knew what.

Scorpius got up, threw the strap of his Quidditch bag over one shoulder, looped the strap of the kit around his wrist and lastly picked up his broom.

"Let's go," he said to Albus.

"Scorp..." He cleared his throat for more, but nothing else came and Scorpius was already walking toward the building at the far side of the pitch, leaving him to follow.

Changing was tense. So tense, in fact, that his shoulders were starting to ache. Shrugging out of his recently unbuttoned short, he rolled them once and craned his neck this side and that.

When he turned his head, he saw that Albus was standing behind him, watching him – his back, to be specific – instead of getting changed himself.

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, dry-mouthed. He suddenly wanted to get his Quidditch shirt on, and fast. A shiver ran up his spine.

Albus shook his head slightly. "You," he just said.

He almost laughed. _Funny. I was waiting for _you_. For you to... say something. Do something. _If he was quite honest, though, he'd been waiting for weeks now, and he was running out of hope.

"Time's getting short," Al murmured, glancing at the clock that was ticking away right above the door to the corridor. Muffled voices could be heard from the girls' changing room, too. Maybe Rose.

Scorpius slipped his shirt on.

"Scorpius," Albus said quietly. "Do you want it?" The question was asked in that simple and honest manner that made Scorpius so angry.

He felt himself seething.

_What's _it_? _he thought_. _He sneered inside._ Your hand?_

_And why do you ask when you already know anyway?_

_And what about you?_

_Why are you so calm when I-_

"Tell me." So quiet and polite.

"Yes," he said from between clenched teeth, and repeated, "Yes," to make sure he had heard.

Stepping into the bathroom, and then into the toilet stall on the far end of the row, he had the stupid urge to slam the door behind himself and lock Al out.

Instead of doing that, he turned and, instead of placing his hands on the tiles as always, pressed his back against the wall. An act of defiance.

A stupid act, he realized moments later, when Al, having flipped the knob to lock the stall, turned around to him and met his eyes.

_The other one_, he thought immediately. _The other you._

Their toes were touching.

Albus' gaze was steady. His eyes were wide and brighter, greener than normal.

Or maybe they just seemed that way because they were so close.

So close.

Scorpius broke eye contact and tried to turn around, feeling very foolish and very warm.

Albus hand shot out and pushed against his shoulder. "No," he said decisively.

Scorpius felt the cold bite of the tiles against his shoulder blade, seeping through the thin fabric of his shirt. He felt Al's warm, warm hand slide down from his shoulder, across his chest, his stomach, to the belt of his trousers, yanking the strap out of the buckle so fiercely that Scorpius had to strain to not fall forward. Eventually, Scorpius lifted his hands and propped himself against Albus' body.

He could feel him breathe, the movement of his chest, even through cloak and shirt.

He could feel his breath hitch just like his own when Albus' right hand finally touched skin to skin.

Slowly. Firmly. Perfectly.

Before long, Scorpius was clinging to him to stay upright. Even pulling him a little closer. And Albus followed the pull, leaning toward him. Just a little.

For long minutes, there was no sound but Scorpius' breathing and the sound of Albus' hand, and in Scorpius' head there was the booming rush of blood, the drum of his heart crescendoing unstoppably, and the pleasure spiralled, spiralled – Scorpius gasped, then gasped his name, wanted to throw his head back but his eyes were caught by Albus' piercing look that held on to him just like his fingers did-

Albus said, "Yes."

/

His body thrummed in the afterglow, his fingers still clenched into Albus' clothes so tightly that they hurt. He could feel sweat beading in the small of his back, under his arms, between his legs, his still trembling thighs.

The world swam back into focus, materializing as Albus Potter's face.

There was a gleam in his green eyes, almost like a fever, and spots of colour on his cheekbones. His mouth was slightly open.

Scorpius peeled his fingers out of his clothes, thinking that it would snap Albus out of it, too, would make him lean back, turn away, wipe his hand and possibly his coat. Go back to regular Albus. Unconcerned best friend Albus.

But he didn't. Scorpius waited for long moments, watched his expression intently, noting the little details like the twitch of his nostrils, the slight sheen of sweat on his upper lip, and the way his eyes, still feverish, scanned his face.

As if on some invisible, inaudible cue, Albus suddenly started to move. He reached out with his left hand and touched his cheek. Let it rest there for just a heartbeat as if he were waiting for Scorpius to swat him away.

Scorpius didn't. He just stood there and stared, unbelieving.

His hand gently slid down to the side and further back until his palm was pressed against the back of his neck, fingers brushing against his hair.

Scorpius was transfixed and watched his face, watched his eyes. So close, closer than he ever remembered them being before. His stomach did weird things in his belly.

His gaze searched Scorpius face in turn but avoided eye contact, then dropped to his lips and slid away as if ashamed, but quickly returned as if magically bound to them.

Scorpius sucked his lower lip between his teeth uncertainly and saw Albus' eyes narrow a little.

_Will you come closer? _he almost asked, and, stupidly,_ What are you doing?_

Albus hesitated. He had just seemed so very determined and unflinching – but now he hesitated. In almost seven years of knowing him, Scorpius didn't think he'd ever seen him hesitate before, not even once.

The other Albus didn't seem like the type to ever hesitate, either.

Scorpius swallowed on a dry throat when he suddenly understood. _This isn't- _

So, this person who was touching him right now, and moving ever closer, staring at his mouth, chipping away at the distance between their bodies centimetre by centimetre, was-

"Albus," he whispered, unsure what he wanted to say.

Albus' eyes flicked upward for a millisecond, then down again. The tips of his fingers whispered against his neck.

_Yes_, he thought.

That was when the bathroom door opened with a loud creak.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)

_I really, really like cliffhangers, yo._


	15. Chapter 15

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations (recently interrupted; therefore the additional warning of "Unresolved Sexual Tension" applies), original characters (recycled although we hate one of them so much right now)

/

_Thanks to __ChiffonShock for following this story (better late then never, eh? :D) and to Grrrrrr-the-artist-formerly-known-as-Gahhh for reviewing and, once again, showing me that my cliffhanger game is still going strong :) Strong enough to change usernames. I mean, woah. Also, thanks to the Weird Guest reviewer for reviewing ^^; (I didn't mean to make anyone like Rose, either. If anything, it's worse that she's dangling this in front of Scorpius *now*, isn't it? Or maybe that was just... *finger wriggles*... destiny.)  
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_Alright. So. Which idiot disturbs a budding romance? Find out below._

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><p><strong><em>~Chapter 15~<br>_**

"Potter? Malfoy?"

Scorpius felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water on him. All at once he was very aware of his state of half-undress, and of the lingering wetness on his skin – everywhere, only most of it sweat – and of the fact that he was standing almost body to body with another boy who had just jerked him off and almost kissed him and whom he had almost just kissed back in a bloody Quidditch locker room toilet stall.

"Parkinson," Albus said loudly, startling Scorpius. He could feel his voice in his chest, they were so close.

And then, sheer panic. He widened his eyes at him in a desperate, non-verbal _What the fuck are you doing?!_

Albus just pulled up an eyebrow, almost nonchalantly.

A curious chill went through Scorpius.

"Potter," Brice called. "I thought you and Malfoy wanted to put in another short training before the warm-up?"

"Yeah," Albus said, but nothing more.

"Where's Malfoy? His stuff is in the locker room and all."

Albus said, "He's in here, too."

Scorpius choked on a breath.

Albus' hand left its place in his neck and came to rest heavily against his mouth, half-stifling his coughs, ensuring that he certainly wouldn't say anything. Also, incidentally, ensuring that he wouldn't move a hair.

His fingers were very warm and soft and sweaty as they pressed against his lips.

"Uhm," Brice's voice rang out, more than a little curious and baffled. "You're both in the same stall? At the... like, same time? Uh. Why?"

Al's mouth twitched upward in a corner. "Idiot thought it particularly clever to take candy from my bag. Turned out to be one of my uncle's newest creations."

_Wow_, Scorpius thought. Lying was even rarer an occurrence than giving orders, and yet he did it with obvious ease. And happily.

"Ohhh," Brice went, understanding almost at once. "Vomitoffee?"

"Something like that," Al nodded as if Brice could see him. "I'm holding his hair back and reminding him to keep breathing. Figure I owe him," he added with a mumble.

As if on cue, Scorpius couldn't help but cough again.

"Right," Brice said as if it was only obvious.

Then, "Why'd you lock up?"

Al glanced sideways, hesitated, then pulled his hand away from Scorpius' mouth and reached out to flick the knob back to 'free'. "Habit," he said lightly.

Scorpius felt cold sweat break out all over his body, and his stomach seemed to curl up on itself.

The longest three seconds in Scorpius' life passed. He waited for the stall door to open, for Brice's face to appear, for hell to break loose, for himself to be swallowed by the earth itself. His pants were still down. His recently flaccid penis was still out, for Mordred's sake. Vomitoffee probably didn't exist (yet), but Scorpius still felt like he had eaten a handful of them right now.

"Ah," Brice uttered stupidly. He had audibly stayed right where he had been.

A contented smile spread over Albus' face.

"So you'll be a'ight?" Brice asked. "Warm-up's in twenty."

"Yep," Albus said. "He'll be done throwing up in a few minutes."

"Okay," Brice said with a chuckle, and then the door creaked open again and closed again as he left.

Scorpius sagged against the wall, dizzy, breathless. He pulled up his pants to give his hands something to do even though they were shaking too wildly for the task, really, arranging his extremities as he did that, and failed to thread the leather strap into the belt buckle again on account of his incompetent fingers.

Al's fingers nudged his aside. "Here, let me..."

Scorpius felt his heartbeat accelerating again, but there were noises in the locker room now and the moment had been broken. It wasn't the same. Also, he still felt ill.

"Lucky it was Parkinson," Albus suddenly muttered, done with his belt and currently busy wiping his hand with toilet paper. "Dumb as a bag of hammers, that one."

Scorpius gave a weak laugh.

"You okay?" Al asked, giving him and them himself a quick, efficient once-over.

"Not really," he yearned to say. "I'm confused. Did you just lie through your teeth? Could that mean- Is there a chance that you've been pretending all the time? I'm so confused. It's like I don't know you. Do you _want_ me? Why are you doing this? I don't understand it. I don't understand any of this. Confused." _And unkissed. _"I might be sick."

Instead, he only nodded.

"Okay, then. Let's go kick some Gryffindor butt," he quipped and left the toilet stall, quickly washing his hands on the way out.

Scorpius only followed when the bathroom door had fallen shut several minutes ago, standing there, breathing and swearing under his breath, glad that he hadn't clapped him on the shoulder in parting or something.

The story of his little thievery and the instant karma had spread quickly. He didn't have to try very hard to seem somewhat shaken.

/

They did end up kicking Gryffindor butt, which was doubly fortunate for Scorpius since his parents surprisingly happened to be in attendance. Albus had spotted them sitting in the parents' stand between the Shrewsburys and the Parkinsons (all six of them, something especially his father seemed to take a dim view of) and shouted it over to him just before the starting whistle. It served to focus him for the next one hour and eighteen minutes, which was how long it took until Jane Crowell won the diving duel against Iris Jordan and plucked the Snitch out of the air.

Lloyd, bleeding from his mouth after a run-in with Gryffindor beater Dale O'Brian and missing a front tooth, even praised both Scorpius and Albus (who had his pinky finger put in a splint in minute 5) for "very solid work" during the post-match huddle.

Scorpius and Albus glanced at each other with a pleased smirk, still glowing from the adrenaline of the game and the victory euphoria.

Scorpius didn't see that Albus' glance lasted several seconds longer than his. He heard his mother's voice calling his name and looked up to see his parents waiting near the foot of the stand. His mother waved, smiling broadly. She was wearing a two feet high, slightly lopsided clip-on mohawk in Slytherin colours. The sight made him smile. He excused himself and went over to them.

Albus watched him go.

/

"So the next game will only be in March? That's unfortunate. Far as I can tell, you are on a roll," his mother said after his father and he had finished their lengthy in-depth analysis of the best moves and goals of the game.

He shrugged. "Training will resume two weeks from now. I don't think we'll lose it until then."

Astoria smiled broadly. "You and Albus work really well together," she said, even though she had zero idea whatsoever about Quidditch in general or beaters in particular.

Scorpius still winced a little. "Uh, yes," he agreed just as his father turned away with ostentation.

Obviously, this was exactly what his mother had intended. She grinned a little wickedly.

"Come on, darling. I'll walk you to the locker rooms. You should take a shower ASAP."

She took off the mohawk and handed it over to her husband – thumping him in the chest with it, really, which made him go "Ouff!" – and took Scorpius by the shoulder. "I'll be right back. Look, dear, Pansy seems to much desire to speak with you," she said by the way of farewell to Draco, leaving him standing there, looking for some way, any way at all, to evade Pansy Parkinson.

"Poor dad," Scorpius commented once they were out of earshot. "What did he do?"

"Oh, nothing," his mother replied with pointed airiness.

He was too afraid to ask any further. His father probably also didn't know exactly what he'd done wrong this time. Women could be so scary and difficult.

"So that Gryffindor keeper," Astoria began after a moment of silence. "That was Rose Weasley, wasn't she?"

"Yes," he said neutrally.

"She's a really good keeper," she said.

"Yes," he repeated. "Best of all four houses by a margin."

"So... How are you doing?" She didn't specify whether she meant the you in singular or plural form.

Scorpius almost took the easy way out, answering a meaningless 'I'm fine', because, really, there was no plural form 'you' that included himself and Rose Weasley any more anyway. But then he remembered that short moment a few hours before and wondered for a split second.

"She's leaving next Friday, isn't she?" his mother kept asking before he had made up his mind for an answer of the previous question.

"Far as I know." He nodded.

"Mmh," she made. "You don't seem sad about that at all. That's good, I guess."

He glanced at her, but she didn't look at him.

"Too glad that the spell's wearing off for me to be sad," he murmured and almost laughed at how weird his priorities were now, and how absurd the whole situation was, and how miserable the next seven days would be. _It gets worse before it gets better_ seemed to be another one of those corny adages that might prove itself right before long.

Out of nowhere, the thought crossed his mind that he could pretend that the spell hadn't worn off – given that it actually _would_ wear off, which was still not guaranteed.

Then today wouldn't have been the last time.

He wondered whether he would be able to deceive his friend like that, even hypothetically. After that scene before the game, it was obvious that Albus was the master of dissimulation. And he had said, weeks ago in that talk they had after DADA, that he was "not fantastically hard to figure out, really."

"I'm proud that you've taking this in stride, darling," his mother was saying. "Apart from that incident in History... Let's just say that your father and I expected more... disruption. Because it is a long time and certainly a major incision in your... well, day-to-day life-"

"Mum," Scorpius mumbled, feeling himself go red in the face. _In stride? Uh, no._ "Please." There were still people around.

His mother stopped and gently took him by the shoulders.

"I'm just saying that I was rather... afraid that this might change you. Make you desperate or aggressive or... I don't know. Corrupt you. I had such terrible visions of losing you. Your heart."

Just like coming into their children's room without knocking, saying kitschy things with utmost sincerity and not being laughed at for it was another one of the privileges of a mother, he figured.

Scorpius allowed her a quick hug, mumbling something about being sweaty and dirty that got ignored.

"I'm so glad you passed this trial, my darling," Astoria said with a hushed voice.

He bit his lip. Just like in most DADA tests of his school career, he'd had plenty of help with that. He had no doubts that, if it hadn't been for Albus, things would have gone very differently.

And also, it wasn't over yet.

_Except that, for Albus, it is..._

_Unless I pretend-_

As if suddenly realizing that she was being embarrassing, his mother suddenly let him go and shooed him toward the locker rooms for a well-deserved clean-up.

"And- oh Merlin, the portkey's due in half an hour already, too. Oh dear, I'm afraid there's really no time for you and your father to properly say good-bye..."

She apologized for timing everything so badly, and Scorpius told her that it was _fine_ in several different variations, eventually sending her off with a subtle plea to make up with his dad and give him his regards.

When he went to the shower room ten minutes later, Albus came his way. His hair was wet, he was wearing nothing but the towel around his waist. Intently fiddling with the makeshift splint, he didn't even notice him until Scorpius spoke up.

"How's the finger?" he asked.

"Don't know, really," he murmured back. "Don't think it's broken, though. Maybe sprained." He shrugged. "I'll live. How's the parents?"

"Temporarily not on speaking terms," Scorpius sighed. "But fine, seen individually. Dad almost admitted that your shot at Tate was the best move of the game, but then his Potterphobia got the better of him and he changed his mind."

"Runner-up, then! My, what an honour," Al grinned lopsidedly, then frowned a little. "Hope Tate's nose is going to be fine, though."

Scorpius made a hand gesture that signified something like _Literally no one cares, least of all Tate himself_.

An easy silence fell.

"So, uh," Scorpius started and looked around as if searching for something to say and meaning to find it in the locker room. Unexpectedly, he did find it there, in a way. "Where are the others? Already done?"

Especially Parkinson normally was such a slowcoach, taking forever in the shower. And Patil, Crowell and Reedy were usually loud enough to be heard through the entire building after a victory (their way of rubbing it in), but there was only a low hum of a far-off conversation and nothing else.

"Yes, they wanted to take the trip to Hogsmeade, so they really hurried. Lloyd has promised to buy. You know, to celebrate the great triumph."

Scorpius grunted. "Did he specify what exactly he'd buy, though?"

"Nah," Al answered with a nod. "I bet he's going to buy them tap water again."

He grunted again. "What a tight-arse."

"Totally," Al concurred. "But some people never learn. So maybe they deserve it."

They exchanged a gleeful grin.

Scorpius wanted to ask him exactly why _he_ had taken so long – normally, Albus was the one who was under and out of the shower and back in his everyday clothes before Scorpius had even peeled himself out of his boots. All he said, however, was, "I better get showering now", feeling the cold draft on his clammy skin and an urgent need to get out of his clingy underpants.

Also, Albus was almost naked. Which had happened quite often in the almost seven years of knowing him, but now it was a little different. Distracting.

"Yes, you better," Albus concurred again after an odd little pause and cleared the doorway like a gentleman.

As Scorpius turned up the water and let it patter onto his head, he couldn't help but imagine Albus _not_ getting dressed and maybe coming into the shower with him instead and then-

He rubbed his face vigorously, spraying water everywhere, then turned the tap to 'cold'.

Perhaps his mother had been wrong, perhaps he had been corrupted. And perhaps he had lost his heart.

When he came back to the locker room several minutes later, Albus was gone.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)


	16. Chapter 16

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: Scorpius Malfoy/Albus Severus Potter

Rating: M for grown-up language and sexual situations and themes.

Warnings: slash, slightly non-consensual situations, original characters

/

_Hey guys, welcome back for the second to last update! Sorry for being so late today. I had so much stuff to do and wasn't near a computer._

_Thanks to anonmum and sine13 for following this story, even though there's really not that much to follow left now... anyway, thanks for reading! Also, thanks to sine13 and HenriaSownbinder for favving!  
>(Weird Guest: I quite liked the symmetry of Brice Parkinson cockblocking Scorpius while Pansy did the same to Draco... ^^; Poor Malfoy men. I am not a nice person. Thank you for reading and reviewing, dear!)<em>

* * *

><p><strong><em>~Chapter 16~<br>_**

_~6 to 2 days left_

Scorpius decided on Sunday morning during breakfast – when Albus Potter sat down on the other side of the table and four seats to the left which irritated and ridiculously hurt him even though the rational part of his brain told him that Al clearly hadn't had any intention – to dive into his school work, especially into DADA stuff. There was still a bad mark to cancel out and an individual test to prepare for.

He holed himself up at the far side of the library and was glad that he didn't see a soul for hours. Immersed in swotting, he even forgot the time and missed lunch, which led him to the kitchen. While he ate a bowl of hearty soup, prepared by a young-looking elf who watched his every move and every little expression while wringing her hands and bouncing on the tips of her toes, he attempted to sort out his feelings enough to possibly put them onto parchment to write a letter to his mother.

In the end he gave up. He didn't even know what the question was. Everything was so confusing.

And anyway, his mother would only write back that a) he should definitely wait until the end of the week to avert the danger of fulfilling his destiny after all and that b) he should man up and speak to 'her'. Get 'her' to tell him what 'she' really felt and wanted, get 'her' to reveal 'her' true self.

"So which of the Albuses is the real one?" he heard himself ask. "The indifferent one, the one who jumped to lend a hand, the one with the smouldering look who almost kissed me, or the stone-cold liar who apparently thought it was all a joke?"

He suddenly lost appetite and spent the following half an hour reassuring the poor little house-elf that it wasn't her fault and to stop grating her forehead. The following three hours he also spent in the kitchen, telling himself that he liked the busy sounds and the smells and the service (so much butterbeer) and was definitely not actually hiding.

When he got back to the dungeon, night had already fallen. There was an Albus-shaped mound on Albus' bed and a shimmery sheen of a silencing spell around it. Shrew told him that he had finally gone to see Pomfrey about his finger which had swollen to the size of a grape around the middle joint during the day and she had dosed him with some sort of sledgehammer-equivalent anti-sprain-anti-swelling-potion that required lots of sleep so he'd be completely fine again tomorrow morning.

Scorpius tried not to sigh in relief.

The next morning started at 5 again, with a cold shower, again, and breakfast that was basically inhaled so he could speak to Professor Flitwick before class in pursuit of scholarly betterment. He also spoke to the Professors Smith and Sinistra and a piece of additional assignment each that, if completed to satisfaction, would raise his grades considerably. Thus, Monday passed by.

Tuesday morning's Herbology lesson took place in a classroom up in Ravenclaw tower for a change which Scorpius used as an excuse to leave the breakfast table basically the minute Albus sat down next to him, and which also enabled him to evade both Amanda and Rose by sitting right in the front row – that way, he would only have seen them if he had turned around and craned his neck (and he didn't). In History (third period) he had the chance to do his assignments for Runes (from second period), and in DADA, Professor Finnigan had them paired up in threes according to alphabet. Scorpius ended up with Mariella Lawless and Patrick Niles and in the end decided not to go to study group. Mariella glowered but nodded.

"Fine by me," she grumbled. "That way, maybe Potter will pay proper attention again instead of checking you out all the time. We've mainly got DADA stuff to catch up on anyway and you just reminded us that you're basically hopeless at that..."

Before he could even get a 'what?' out, she was already out the door.

The rest of the evening he spent firing Bludgers at Patil and Reedy again in the room of requirement (with a bit more force than necessary, and standing quite a distance away from them at all times). When the three of them returned to the dungeon, the common room was already empty and the dorms full of snoring. As he fell asleep, Scorpius promised himself to finally talk to Albus – really talk to him – tomorrow. Wednesday.

Problem was that Albus suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth right after Astronomy and didn't turn up for lunch or at any point after that. It took Scorpius a full hour of brooding in Care to work out the reason: Rose's going away party. He had entirely forgotten about it. Rose would be gone by Friday morning, so Thursday evening was the last possible opportunity for celebrating, and Wednesday the last possible chance for a Weasley-Potter-and-Friends organisational gathering.

Said gathering lasted until late in the night. Until after eleven, to be exact, because Scorpius heard and saw Albus tiptoe into bed at eleven nineteen.

When Al glanced into his direction, Scorpius reflexively screwed his eyes shut, and kept them shut until – hours and hours later, or so it seemed – Al finally started snoring softly.

_Tomorrow_, he promised – perhaps Al, perhaps himself – and tried to sleep.

Naturally, he slept in. Naturally, Albus shook him awake rather roughly just fifteen minutes before first period would start. First period was Potions, and Professor Smith was in a lousy mood (naturally), sending him out to the grounds with a thawing potion and a little reaping hook to collect a bunch of Icicle Snowdrops as punishment for being tardy.

Detention had never hurt that much. Even though he hurried back to the common room afterwards, Albus had already left. Gone wherever Rose's going away party was happening. He wasn't invited, so he didn't know.

That night, Al came back at ten after midnight, with the smell of firewhiskey delicately wafting around him.

Scorpius closed his eyes again.

For a second, the smell seemed to be getting stronger.

The next second, Al was flat on his back with his cloak still on, snoring louder than even Prince.

/

_~1 day left_

All Weasleys and Potters and even some close friends of Rose's were freed from the first two periods to see her off at ten past nine at Hogsmeade Station. Even though this meant that only Albus was missing from the classes which Scorpius attended on that day (Transfiguration was the only one, because second period was Runes for himself and Arithmancy for Al), the classroom seemed to be weirdly empty. The chair next to him was like a missing tooth.

That morning, Al had slept straight through the usual morning commotion in the dorm, not even moving an eyelid. When all the others had gone, Scorpius had taken his own alarm clock, set it to eight and put it next to Albus' bed on the floor. Onto the bedside table he had put the last dose of Hang-O-Vermouth he could find in his own drawer, a scrap of paper onto which he had scribbled DRINK ME, a sugar cube to help the nasty sobering potion go down, and a tall glass of water. Lastly, he had taken the blanket from his bed, because Al was lying on his own blanket like Smaug was lying on his golden treasure, and spread it over him as best he could without waking him up.

He figured that it was all he could do for him. After all, he had been in a haste, almost been too late for Transfiguration.

Sitting in Runes class, he looked out the window and into the dreary February morning, wondering whether Al had been on time, dreading to think about how glum he would be if he had missed the departure somehow. In that case, he would even feel sad for Rose, he was surprised to find. Not getting to say good-bye properly before leaving for a month and a half was really rather tough.

He was on his way to the Runes classroom (in safe distance from Briony Parkinson and Constance Bagman – who seemed to be whispering behind their hands and kept glancing back at him, or did he just imagine it?) when a call made him turn.

Albus was running up to him. Even from further away, he could see the wide grin on his face which still looked somewhat wan and hungover. So much for worrying, he supposed.

Al stopped an arm's length in front of him and put his hands on his knees, gasping for air for a moment, before he managed, "Scorp! Thank you!"

And then he pulled him into a bear hug.

"You're, like, the bestest best friend, did you know that?" he mumbled behind his back, his voice rumbling against his chest.

_Oh_, Scorpius thought. _Not hungover. Rather, still drunk._

"There, there." He patted him on the back. "Maybe the Hang-O-Vermouth was not such a good idea, eh?"

Depending on what exactly Al had drunk yesterday and how much, the potion might have the opposite effect – or so he had read in _Witch Weekly_ once. He had always assumed it was an urban myth. Maybe it wasn't, after all.

"I fucked up so bad and you're still so considerate." Albus sighed happily, leaning his whole weight on his shoulder. "I've been trying to make good all this time and you totally didn't owe me anything and still you're so thoughtful and I know you disprove... I mean, dis_ap_prove of me drinking and stuff-"

At this point, he was already rocking Scorpius sideways a little, and the sight was obviously hilarious judging by Constance and Briony's giggling from the end of the corridor.

But Scorpius didn't feel like laughing. Instead, he felt icy cold.

"Uhm, Al." He disentangled himself from his friend's clumsy embrace. "What do you mean, 'trying to make good'?"

Al frowned as he picked up on the serious tone and searched his face, bemused. "You know," he mumbled, shooting a look over his shoulder at the two girls who were still tittering and then looking back at him with a squint as if he were nearsighted. "The thing. The thing I said and all those things that happened and I... gah." He grimaced. "My tongue is all furry. That potion on the table was guh-ross."

Finally it dawned on Scorpius. The most obvious, most typically Albus, most dreadfully simple and stupid truth of all. He almost laughed at just how obvious it was, in hindsight, and at how dumb he had been to never consider it.

Doing _that _– 'the thing' – had simply been Albus' way of repenting. Of saying sorry and making it up to him, making the 'reparations' he had mentioned in that bathroom all those weeks ago.

In his head, a slide show of all that had happened swept past. He remembered what he had said, and how he had said it.

Albus had bloody blamed himself. For the misunderstanding with Rose, for not telling him off properly, for unknowingly making it worse – and then, by extension, _for everything_. For the necessity of the curse Rose's father had put on him, and for the ordeal that followed.

Guilt. That's what had driven Albus Potter into... _service_. Scorpius felt his windpipe constrict and his stomach sink.

"Scorp, are you okay? You look kind of pasty."

"I'll be late for Runes," he said, then turned and walked away.

"Scorp?" Albus asked, bewildered by the sudden change of climate, and not drunk enough any more to not notice that something was wrong. But Scorpius didn't stop. "Alright," he called after him. "See you in fourth period, then!"

He lifted his hand to wave backwards over his shoulder, but then rubbed his eyes vehemently instead. Bagman and Parkinson snorted with laughter when he passed, still caught up on the spectacle of drunk Albus.

Both he and the two girls ended up too late for Runes, but the girls came in even half a minute later than he and so only they got detention. Any other day, Scorpius would have been full of schadenfreude. Any other day.

/

_~0 days left_

Hogwarts was a huge castle. After centuries of pupils, teachers, house-elves and ghosts living there (or, in the case of the latter, haunting it), there were still corridors that had never been walked at all, rooms that had never been entered, nooks and crannies that even the Weasley twins had never laid eyes on because they didn't seem to be of any interest. There were hundreds or maybe thousands of ways to get lost in it.

But there seemed to be not even one way for Scorpius Malfoy to hide from Albus Severus Potter.

He knew it was childish to do it. Childish to pretend to still be sleeping at ten in the morning when his empty stomach grumbled so loudly it hurt and Prince and Shrew had had a shouting match that probably even woke the girls in the girl's dorm, childish to go down to the kitchen for lunch instead of joining everyone else in the Great Hall after Albus had finally ceased his deathwatch, and then somewhat ridiculous to avoid the common room for the rest of the day.

It became really infantile when he jumped up from his library chair, heart thumping like mad, when he spotted Al coming toward him.

"Scorpius," Albus said when he arrived at Scorpius' table, quickly taking in what was happening. "I think we need to talk."

"About what?" he asked as he crammed his History book into his bag and got ready to flee.

"Everything, I think," Al replied, and then called, "Scorpius, wait!" when Scorpius slipped by him.

Scorpius thought he had given him the slip, especially since Al got stopped by Madam Pince and scolded for being louder than a mouse coughing in her holy halls. But then, ten minutes later, he turned a corner in the dungeon – on the way to the dorm, to get his broom and somehow escape through the air – and basically barrelled into him.

For a full second he only stared in wonder. How had he made it here so fast? And how had he known where he was going?

Then he noticed that Al was holding him by the shoulders to steady them both.

That _really_ reminded him of his dream last night.

"Scorp, please," Al said. "Something's wrong and I really want to make it right."

"Not again," he mumbled to himself, quickly stepping out of Al's reach. "There's nothing to 'make right', Al. You haven't done anything wrong."

And _he_ hadn't. That was the worst part of it. The shame was wholly in Scorpius' court.

"Then what's going on? Why are you running away from me?"

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are," he interrupted impatiently. "Yesterday, too, ever since I got back to the castle from Hogsmeade, right before second period. And then in DADA in fourth, you sat on the other side of the room, between the bloody Hufflepuffs, for Mordred's sake." The Hufflepuffs had been positively petrified, too. "Scorp, talk to me."

He had made zero progress on the how-to-express-it- front since last Sunday when he unwittingly drove a house-elf to self-mutilation. If anything, he had been regress, due to that exact moment Al had just mentioned. Funny thing was that Albus himself probably didn't even remember what he had said.

Oh, and then there was the dream he just kept remembering and remembering...

Somewhere in the dungeon maze, a door opened. Voices wafted toward them.

Al huffed in annoyance, then grabbed Scorpius by the upper arm and pulled him along. Just like he had that day during Quidditch practice. Scorpius remembered it vividly and was too stumped to even fight back.

"Bathroom. Now," Albus grumbled, pulling him toward a door near the stairs and shoving him into the room.

/

/**TBC **(tomorrow)

_Sorry, I really like recurring motifs.  
>Also: Did you enjoy that Mariella moment, BKstories? :D<br>_


	17. Chapter 17

Title: A Helping Hand, or A Hogwarts Bathroom Ballad

Author: AristideCauquemaire

Pairing: You should know this by now.

Rating: Seriously.

Warnings: I mean, come on.

/

_Yay, you made it!_

_Special special thanks, as usual, to Nia, by dearest (and onliest) beta reader. Mwah! Also, thanks to Logociet for following this story at the very last possible opportunity, and to my dearest Weird Guest for continuous and unwavering interest and enthusiasm (and reviews) :) _

_Good. So. One last time. Once more. With feeling._

* * *

><p><strong><em>~Chapter 17~<br>_**

Scorpius wondered whether it was irony or already destiny that the bathroom Al had pushed him into happened to be the very same he had ended up in that one night when he had fled his bed with nothing but socks, briefs, a boner and his day cloak bundled up in front of himself. That night, Al had also found him somehow. It was really quite an eerie ability, when he thought about it.

Al fired silencing and locking spells all around and checked the stalls for occupants, but they were empty. Once the door of the last stall flew open with a shriek, banged against the wall, revealing an empty toilet, and then slowly swung closed again, he turned to him.

"Talk," he said. "What's going on?"

Scorpius couldn't look him in the eyes.

"Is it the spell, still?" he asked. "It was scheduled to wear off today. Did it? Were there complications-"

"It's fine," Scorpius said. He had thought about lying to him and pretending, but seeing how he looked at him now, with all that real concern in his eyes, it had been a really dumb idea. "It wore off. Everything's... fine-" He cleared his throat. "-down there."

It was. He had... checked early this morning. It hadn't been bad.

That reminded him of his dream last night. Again.

"Good," Al said, sounding relieved. "How about the girls? Anything... still weird with them?"

"Seemed fine." He hadn't had any major run-ins with any girls yet that day, but somehow he felt it in his gut that this issue was resolved. He shrugged. "I haven't been bothered with them any more since..." He trailed off, glancing at the toilet stall on the far left.

"Good," Al said again, more slowly.

Silence.

"So... why is everything not back to normal?" he asked almost gingerly. "Everything should be fine again but you act like-"

"I've made you a whore," Scorpius burst out and involuntarily clapped a hand over his mouth once the words were out.

/

Al stared, blinked. "What?"

Scorpius went to the wall on the far side of the room and sat down, leaning his back against the cool granite.

"I was so stupid," he said and then repeated it, in present tense, for good measure. "I am so stupid. I didn't see what was happening, I swear I didn't. I was so focussed on me and my- my problem and everything was hormones and that spell and I..."

He knew he was rambling but he couldn't stop.

"I should have noticed it. You talked about Rose again and again, and I was only annoyed at the constant reminder because I didn't feel anything for her anymore, it had stopped being about her very early on, but for you- I should have noticed that you had made that your duty, I should have known that you would put the blame on yourself, and that you would mean it bloody literally when you talked about reparations, and that you would go so far to-"

He swallowed the words, then exhaled a laugh.

"I always knew that you've inherited that helper complex from your father but I didn't see that pattern because I'm apparently _blind_ and stupid-"

"Scorpius," Albus interrupted quietly, finally stopping the flow of words. He had taken one step toward him, but not more, as if he were an animal in attack mode. "Slow. Down."

"I'm so sorry, Al," he whispered.

Al just answered, "Yes, I got that. I'm not sure yet what it is you're sorry_ for_, though."

"You said it yourself yesterday," he said vehemently, almost barking it, suddenly angry that Al didn't get it, that he didn't see how despicable his actions had been, and that he was still so. Bloody. Calm. _Ugh_.

"Scorp, no offence, but I was drunk yesterday. I'm not entirely sure what I said but-"

"You said you 'fucked up bad' and had been 'trying to make good', and I finally understood why you..." He gestured toward the bathroom stall whose door had swung open yet again, providing a high-pitched wailing sound all the while, making it seem as if the door were beckoning him.

"Why I... what?" Al asked.

That was the last straw.

"Merlin damn it, Potter! You only jerked me off because you felt guilty for the thing with Rose! I've basically made you my personal prostitute. Right here, in this room."

Saying it out loud, hearing it spelled out hurt his heart. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wished with all his might that he could turn back time to that Friday he had sat on his sofa at home, wearing his favourite winter sweater and his Pokémon undies, reading all about the Danish team in _Quidditch Today_.

Al tilted his head back and groaned at the ceiling. "Merlin damn it, Malfoy. You're an idiot."

"I know," he started, sniffling a little. "you keep reminding-"

"Oh, shut up," Albus talked over him, clearly exasperated.

Silence, except for another sniffle.

Albus sighed.

"Scorpius, there's only one of us who can make the other one do something he didn't want to do... and we already established which of us that is on multiple occasions," he said lightly.

"But-"

"Shut up."

Scorpius did. Then realized and glanced up. Albus opened his hands, as if to say, _There, see?_ Scorpius glowered.

For the next sentence, Albus inhaled deeply, then spoke rapidly. "I do admit that the thought occurred to me that I was responsible for the mess you were clearly in and therefore obligated to help you out-"

"Albus-"

"-but that was exclusively before I knew what exactly was going on with you and that spell. I swear."

He even lifted two fingers in a swearing gesture.

"Before I knew what was really going on it just looked like you were emotionally derailing because of the break-up, and I felt the obligation to get you back on track. Even though it frustrated me because you were really bloody uncooperative. Help you with school stuff, or with the rebound girl, or just take your mind off things. So you'd get over the broken heart."

Scorpius wanted it to make sense so badly. "But when it turned out that I needed someone to bloody wank me off, you still... did that. Why? If not because you thought you _had_ to, why?"

"Because I wanted to," he said bluntly.

After a beat, Scorpius huffed. "Not funny."

"Not joking," Albus responded, looking him straight in the eye.

Like a gawker would shove his way through a crowd to get a good look from the front row, anger bubbled up through the mass of self-deprecation. Scorpius almost rolled his eyes sneering "Not that shit again." He knew that he was about to be stuck with the enigma that was Albus Severus Potter, man of a thousand (or at least four) faces once more.

"Do you remember that _I_ told _you_ to open that door?" Al pointed at the toilet stall door that had since come to a rest.

"Yes, but-"

"Do you remember me telling you to pull down your pants that day in the locker room?" he continued, making a case for how it had all happened of his own volition. "And basically bullying you into the stall after that? And before that game-"

_When you didn't kiss me._

"Yes, _but that wasn't you_," he yelled to shut him up. Which it did, effectively.

For a while, the only sound was a drip-drip-drip of a water tap.

Albus stared again, blinked again, but then his expression darkened and veered into an irritated kind of confusion. "_What_?"

Scorpius got up. He couldn't sit any more, he had to move, had to breathe_._

"I had noticed that there was... at least... one of you who...uhm. Appeared to like the physical thing."

"Yeah, that would be _me_." Albus' voice was sharper now.

Scorpius grimaced and nodded toward him in what was supposed to be a placating gesture, but Albus' glower just deepened.

"It just doesn't... That Albus doesn't fit with... the other one. You know, the one who-" _doesn't lean in and doesn't lean away. The one who literally doesn't do anything, ever. _"My friend."

Before he could say that, however, Albus cut in, "Scorpius, are you implying that I have multiple personalities now?"

Drip-drip-drip went the tap.

_When you put it like that, it does sound a bit daft._

"There's normal you," Scorpius said through gritted teeth, willing to defend himself like a cornered cat, "and then there's the one who- uhm, touches... And there's the liar-"

"Liar?" Albus hissed.

"When Parkinson almost came in," he pressed. "You made up that story like it was nothing. And you _enjoyed_ it. It wasn't like you at all."

Al rolled his eyes. "You've never seen me in an exam situation, Scorp. The more nervous I get, the cooler I look on the outside. During the O.W.L.s I practically went full James Bond."

Scorpius just frowned, unconvinced and also annoyed at the clearly Muggle-world related reference he didn't get because he hadn't elected Muggle Studies in fifth year.

"That does not mean that I've got some compulsive liar alter ego who is out to somehow... trick you, Scorp. Just because I lied at Parkinson doesn't mean I've ever been anything but honest with you."

Scorpius just bit his lip. Yes, it made sense. Then again, that was exactly what a compulsive liar would say, no?

Albus threw up his hands and groaned wordlessly. It was just a string of frustrated sounds at first that bounced off the bathroom's tiles.

"You're such an idiot, Malfoy!" he shouted. "What kind of stupid fucking idea is that?"

Swearing loudly was even more unlike him than giving orders. Scorpius mouth was open.

And really, what kind of stupid fucking idea was it? Seeing how enraged Al was at the accusation, how- hurt he was.

"Listen. Listen carefully," Al said, walking up to him, making him want to back away. "There is only _one_ of me. Exactly _one_ dude who... bloody... likes doing _that_," he gestured desperately, "for whatever reason and who fancies his idiot best friend but also doesn't want to scare him away."

He huffed mightily, watched it sink in ever so slowly.

_Fancy?_

"Face it, you're a bloody idiot, Malfoy. You got everything all tangled up in your idiot head when the truth is really, _really_ simple."

"Scare me away?" Scorpius yelled back, his voice creeping into upper registers which clearly showed how _not-scared_ he was. Clearly.

_Fancy?_

"You ran away from me, Scorp. You didn't look me in the eye. You never once moved toward me of your own volition, I always had to put pressure on you, bloody corner you in some toilet stall or another – So, yeah. Scare you."

"B-But I..."

_Excuse me. Fancy?_

"Have a look in the mirror, man," he barked. Then he combed both hands through his hair in frustration. "That night when we were here for the first time... after it happened, I could basically see that you were scared shitless by it. You thought I might tell the others, embarrass you in some way, or that we would stop being friends, didn't you?"

Scorpius only clenched his teeth and said nothing.

"Of course you would, you idiot," Albus rolled his eyes. "So I tried to reassure you because I thought you needed that most of all. Reassurance. Stability. So you'd know that I wasn't bloody going anywhere or telling anyone or making fun of you or whatever you feared I'd do."

He remembered being so relieved that morning when everything had been as usual.

But the relief had faded pretty quickly, making way for something more... oblique that had grown into full-on anger at the way his friend was just immutable.

At the way he never slipped a hand onto his thigh when he was sitting next to him. _And that... that's really daft._

"Regular Albus," he whispered darkly to himself. Albus caught it, though, and rolled his eyes to the ceiling mumbling "Yeah, regular old me" in a mocking tone.

The tap had stopped dripping as if to listen. Now, of all times, when everything had been said already.

"Do you bloody get it now, you git?" Al asked as if he were a slow child. "Everything is really very simple. There's no guilt trip, no... prostitution, no dissociative identity disorder. There is just you, making shit up in your head because you're scared and a bit bonkers... and me."

"Fancying me," Scorpius mumbled, pushing the word a little so it would get out.

Albus inhaled and exhaled audibly. "Yes. Fancying you." He cocked an eyebrow. "What did you think, that I just want to grope you with no feeling behind it? I'm not _that_ desperate, you know."

His heart made stupid little leaps in his chest. "Since when?"

"Third year, I guess," Al said after a contemplative pause. "Right after I dated Kamya for five days or something."

Scorpius made bug eyes at him. _Yep. Blind._

"It was never a concrete thing until... uhm." He scratched his ear and looked away. "Til you started hanging out with Rose all the time."

His heart did a double leap. "So you were jealous," he stated more than asked.

Now it was Albus' turn to clench his teeth and say nothing.

_And also, you offered to help me out with absolute ulterior motive, you sly son of a-_

_And you told me to wear a jockstrap. You saw me _wearing_ that.  
><em>

_Goddamn it._

"When you kept asking Rose if she was being honest with me and all that..." He trailed off. Memories came raining down and clicked together. "And then you saw her and me on the pitch on Saturday..." That actually explained why he had seemed so angry with Rose that day, and afterwards.

"I just wanted you to be happy," Al said, voice now very quiet.

Their eyes met.

"I still _want_ you to be happy. I'm sorry, Scorpius. If she had just..."_ been honest?_ Al combed a hand through his hair again. "If only she could have-"

_Loved you like I do?  
><em>

"Ah, to hell with it," Scorpius mumbled, walked up to him, cupped and pulled his neck with his hands and pressed his mouth to his.

_Oh_, they both thought simultaneously, and _Fuck_.

/**  
><strong>  
>Scorpius was shaking so much that his belt buckle was jingling like a silver bell. Said belt buckle was dangling somewhere between his knees.<p>

Albus' right warm hand milked the last drops from him.

Albus' left warm hand had slid under his shirt and rested over his stomach, occasionally giving a little pressure, irresistibly pulling his whole body closer to his own.

Albus' body was pressed against him. Grinding against him just a little. A very prominent part pressed right up against his backside, through two layers of clothing.

Albus' nose and mouth nuzzled his ear which made his skin prickle in interesting ways. "You have no idea how much I have wanted to do that," he murmured and thrust his hip a little.

"When?" he managed to breathe.

It was probably illegal to kiss someone on the neck like that. There had to be some sort of law and you probably needed a licence for it and be seventeen or get a signature from your parents or something.

"All the time, really," he answered. Scorpius had already forgotten the question.

Al chuckled. "I was so worried you'd feel that I was having a boner and freak out."

Scorpius just made a hmm-sound, suddenly understanding what he had meant that day when he said that he would 'need to use the toilet', and why he had been so blotchy and sweaty in the face afterwards. _Blind _and_ stupid_, he thought.

But then, Al hadn't wanted him to know, so it was only natural that he hadn't noticed it. After all, Albus knew him better than he knew himself; all evidence pointed to that.

Al knew him so well that he wasn't insisting on him returning the favour just yet because he knew that the thought gave him chills and made him nervous in equal measure. He had gently nudged him toward doing it all the... _usual_ way – with a little extra.

Arching his back a little, causing friction, Scorpius mumbled, "I've had dreams," and Al's laugh rolled over his skin.

"You don't say," he purred. That, and the idea of Al listening in, made a wave of heat run all over Scorpius' body. Embarrassment, but not as mortifying as it had been the last time, and also with something more pleasant mixed in now.

"About you," he continued, voice somewhat husky.

"Ahh," he said, nodding, then skimmed his lips over his skin. "What am I like in your dreams?" he asked, then, with a pointedly sarcastic undertone, "Which one am I?"

Scorpius inhaled a big gulp of air to steel himself, then turned around and pushed him in one fluid motion. Making a surprised noise, Albus stumbled a step and a half backward until his back hit the bathroom stall wall behind him.

Scorpius took a step forward – as gracefully as he could with his pants between his calves – and pushed himself against him, caught his wrists with his hands and pressed them to the wall.

"Kind of like this," Scorpius said and swallowed on a dry mouth. In his dream, something else had happened after that. Something that involved kneeling.

But he couldn't go there.

Not yet.

Al's eyes first widened, then narrowed, and the corner of his mouth curled up to a smirk. _He knows. Of course_, Scorpius thought, looking to the ground, but then resolved not to be bashful. Not right now. Not with himself, half undressed, pressed up against his body.

And then they kissed. For a long, long time. Softly, firmly, fiercely, carefully. Thoroughly and perfectly.

Nothing more, but nothing less, either.

Yet.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Albus sighed blissfully and slumped against him, encircling him with his arms and resting his head on his shoulder.

It was nicer to be hugged by him when he was sober, Scorpius decided. Less rocking, more melting against him, better distribution of weight. All in all, a better hugging experience. It even allowed him to pull his pants up again, although he didn't bother to pull up the fly, do up the button or the belt.

"What a drama," Albus mumbled against the side of his neck.

"Yes," Scorpius mumbled back. "I am sorry." He meant it.

"'s okay," Al said with another sigh. "Was worth it." He snuggled up against him.

Scorpius thought he could feel his heart swelling in his chest, in a not-unhealthy way.

"And anyway, it'll probably get a bit worse from here, all without your help," Al added, then lifted his head to look him in the eye. "You know we're not going to hide in bathrooms, right?"

"Right," he said immediately before his brain really caught up with his mouth. His stomach knotted when it did.

"It'll be alright," Al said, failing to sound unconcerned for once. It wasn't clear whom he was really trying to reassure.

"Lawless already knows," Scorpius pointed out soothingly, and Al gave a little laugh and a "'course she does" in response.

"And my mum will be alright with it," Scorpius went on, thinking back to her little pep talk during packing, and to the letter.

_Someone who listens to you, _she had said. Check.

_Who is loyal and true_ – check.

_Who will not leave you out in the cold_ - check.

_Who understands you_ – double check.

_Who is willing to go through trials and tribulations, to put up with all of this and still ends up right next to you_ – triple check.

_Who makes you happy._

Scorpius breathed in and out and inhaled the scent of Albus' hair. Al responded by tightening his embrace a little. They fit together so nicely.

Check.

It was like she'd had Albus in mind all along.

_"The only thing worse would have been a Potter and I'm thanking the merciful Morgane daily that that girl is way too young for you," _Scorpius suddenly heard his father's voice in his head and winced, just as Albus also seemed to shudder a little.

"My dad's going to kill me, though," they both said at the same time, and then laughed nervously.

And then they just decided to kiss some more.

/

/

**~Fin~**

_I am such a sucker for happy endings, yo._

_Anyway. Thank you for reading, guys and gals! I know you also want me to be happy (you do, don't you?! *sniff*)... so leave a review, maybe? Or a PM? Any small sign of life will do. Let me know what you think :3**  
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